Best Practices: Engaging Site Managers

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Inform Site managers that they are Intranet Champions

It should be conveyed to Site managers that they are more than managers of a site: they are keepers of intranet knowledge, and their efforts are what keeps the intranet alive and valuable to users.

They should be noted/recognized in the following ways: email signature (Intranet Champion), profile value(s), expertise value, rewards and recognition program, etc.

Note

Including Site managers’ role and site name(s) in their profile will make it easy for users to find them.

 

Have a dedicated Site manager site

Create a site where Site managers can be trained, share best practices, post questions, post learning events, etc.

Some areas of focus governance:

• Expectations on how best to run and maintain a site
• Analytics: Getting the most out of site and page analytics
• Engagement: Creating a culture of liking, sharing, commenting, posting, @mentioning, etc.
• New content: Getting your members into the habit of creating content
• Keeping content fresh: What criteria do you use to update or remove content?
• Keeping the dashboard engaging: Creative ways to pull engaging 3rd party content into tiles and content
• Editing content: Use page notifications to let people know when important content has been updated

Have monthly Site manager trainings

To build strong engagement, consider hosting monthly trainings for all Site managers that introduce them to other Site managers across the intranet. Offer an open Q&A forum where they can ask each other questions and demo how they run their sites.

Schedule quarterly Site manager meetings

Topics could include:

• Global analytics
• Upcoming release features
• Best practices
• Spotlight on Site managers and sites
• Recognition
• Q&A

Sites of the month/week

Spotlight a site that represents best practices and core company values. Who are the Site managers? Why did the create it? Has the site's purpose remained the same or shifted? What surprised them? How are they defining site success? How is the site run? What are they doin on the home page and feed to best engage users?

This should be done on the dedicated Site manager site and promoted on the home page. 

Content creators of the month/week

Have site managers nominate content creators that deserve recognition. Provide bio, title, manager, history with the company, why they create content, what kind of content do they create and for which sites.

This should be done on an all-employee site and promoted on the home page.

This can also be done for content creators on individual sites. The Site manager can list on a tile the authors of the top pieces of content from the previous month(s). 

Recognize and reward

Consider using Simpplr's Recognition Suite to publicly recognize Site managers and content creators who are included in the monthly/weekly focus. 

• Provide identifiers such as email signature text or image, reference added to their profile, cube flags, a special background image they are required to use on all internal Zoom calls, swag that can be displayed, etc.
• C-level executive acknowledgement in a feed post and/or piece of content
• Update their managers and leaders with their success
• Add commendations to their performance review
• If you have a formal company recognition program, explore how they can be rewarded