Here at Intranetizen, we’ve talked about the need to measure the impact and performance of your intranet.  While success isn’t measured by page visitors, its hard to meet any of your goals if nobody come to the intranet in the first place.

In this special guest post for Intranetizen, William Amurgis - former director of internal communications at American Electric Power - sets out how you can boost traffic to your intranet by focussing on access, relevance and timeliness.

This week marks 25 years since the Great Storm of 1987, widely (but erroneously) considered the only UK hurricane in living memory. 23 people died in the storm, which also caused £7.8bn worth of damage, cut power to thousands of homes and drove transport to a halt as fallen trees blocked roads and train lines.

But one of the less-well-known consequences was in the financial markets.  Severe travel problems across the south of England meant few traders managed to struggle into work in London on Friday 16 October 1987. Unfortunately this coincided with the Hong Kong and Tokyo stock markets crashing and financial crisis spreading west through Europe.

As the use of social tools in the enterprise has exploded over recent years, the role of community management is being talked about more and more. Yet confusion remains about exactly what it is, and whether it’s really needed. Social media purists argue authentic online communities should be as completely self-organised and un-managed as possible. Others take a more pragmatic approach, suggesting effective facilitation and management helps the community to develop so that it meets its intended purpose.

In this special guest post for Intranetizen, Sam Woods, Community Manager for a global financial company’s social intranet sets out what makes community management work.

A few months ago, we published a rather popular post on how you can ensure intranet project failure — 10 fine pieces of advice to follow if getting the sack is among your objectives. We noted two extreme behaviours: having either an autocratic dictator or a committee of the masses at the helm of your project seemed a sure fire way to break your new intranet before it starts.

There’s a thin line of success between these poles but finding it will be invaluable. So how do you do that?

You have poured your soul into the intranet project. You can see your blood, sweat and tear stains on every page of the beautiful new site. You and the rest of the team have battled at every corner over the new functionality, improved design and better content – and now, it’s time to let it live!

After a straight 48hr weekend shift and a few last minute disasters the site is up and running – you just have to sit back and wait for the applause…

“Is that it?”

“I don’t like the colour’

“Where’s the weather widget gone?!”

“Why do you always go and change everything just as I had figured out how to use it!”

You received a call, or an email, or someone stopped by your desk (neatly ignoring the submission form you have on your intranet), asking you to create them a page or team/project site. And, they don’t just ask for a page, they demand it!  Disinterest may be an intranet manager’s biggest challenge, but over-enthusiastic demands run a close second.

Let’s not be too cynical; it’s great news that colleages see the intranet as important. You might also, for a brief moment, feel a small glimmer of hope that they really thought this through. In reality, your colleague (or, more likely, their manager) has decided they need a page and they need it NOW, but they don’t really know what they need it FOR.  As the intranet manager it is your role to ask the hard questions; to challenge their request. But, how do you go about this without squashing their enthusiasm?