So, you’re about to launch your new internal communication campaign. You’ve been working hard for months to get all the right content and ensure your messaging is perfect for your target audience. But how do you know what digital tools are right for you to manage and share your campaign on? There are simply so many to choose from, and with each software vendor vying for your business, it’s tricky to know who to trust.
That’s why we have compiled a list of our preferred digital internal communication tools for 2021. These tools have been tested by our own digital consultancy team and have shown that they can be extremely beneficial to equip in the toolbelt of a modern internal communicator. And a quick heads up for all our loyal readers; we are not incentivised by any of these companies, we aim to give an honest review and share the information that has made our life easier.
Speaking of making life easier, the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2030, digitization, automation and AI could create global productivity growth of up to $13 trillion USD. A significant part of this growth will come through improved employee communication software – with this market expected to reach $1.6 billion USD by 2026 (ResearchDive). So not only are we looking to help you find the right digital channel to reach your audience on, but also to help your company become more efficient!
Without any further ado, here is our list of the top 10 most useful digital tools for internal communication in 2021 (in no particular order).
Poppulo
Poppulo is a solid choice for internal communicators looking to manage their campaigns from a centralised platform. The product offers email and mobile communication with additional cross-channel measurement capabilities for intranet, video and social channels. Being made specifically for internal communication, it also smoothly integrates with many other internal systems such as Workday, Microsoft Sharepoint and SAP.
ContactMonkey
ContactMonkey is an email extension that can be used with both Gmail and Outlook. Essentially it provides a way to measure, create and customise beautiful emails within your regular email tool. It’s simple, easy to use and most importantly provides those very important data points so you can know who’s engaging with your emails.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an absolute must if you are using any kind of custom web pages or applications for your internal communication. The level of detail and flexibility to compare different types of data is unparalleled by any other analytics tool. Some of the strongest features of Google Analytics include the ability to know what source your audience comes from, what % of them are achieving your goals and how long they stay on the page. Google provides a free in-depth training in their Analytics Academy so you can get the most out of this tool.Source: MicrosoftMicrosoft Sharepoint
Sharepoint has been a go-to tool for internal communication for years now and a favourite among Funk-e clients. But with the recent launch of Sharepoint Online and the modern communication sites, Microsoft have truly stepped up their game. You can use the library of pre-built web parts to add functionality to your page and easily add any text, images or media. Sharepoint Online also offers a solid out-of-the-box analytics setup to measure how employees are engaging with your site.
Microsoft Viva
A brand new platform released by Microsoft just a few months ago, Microsoft Viva brings together communications, knowledge, resources and insights into a single employee experience platform. Whilst Viva learning is not yet available, users can still leverage Viva insights and topics to help organise their content and optimise employee productivity.Source: Airtable
Airtable
The flexibility of the Airtable platform makes it a must-have for any modern business looking to digitise their communication processes. It’s essentially like a Google sheets database but with more features and functionality. Not to mention it has integrations with just about any tool you can think of. You can use it to automate emails to team members, send reminders in your Slack channels or even use the forms feature to get employee feedback. At Funk-e, Airtable is actually the database behind many of the personalised experiences we create for our customers.Bit.ly
You might have seen a few of those short bit.ly links scattered around the internet, but actually it’s so much more than just a link shortener. Alongside the possibility to create branded links and QR codes, bit.ly also offers analytics and campaign management tools. Through creating your links with bit.ly, you can track over 20 real-time data points such as number of clicks, locations, source and much more. Bit.ly is the perfect tool to capture data when your platform’s in-built analytics are lacking or if you simply want to know which links are being clicked the most.
Salesforce myTrailhead
myTrailhead is an enterprise-grade learning experience platform that is perfect for when you need to include more learning and development as part of your internal communication campaigns. It offers features such as gamified learning, custom content creation, analytics and custom learning journey creation. So if you’re introducing a new topic that needs to be explained to different audiences in a way that is relevant to them, myTrailhead provides a solution to enable you to create journeys that share only the most relevant content with your audience.
Officevibe
Officevibe is a simple and easy-to-use employee engagement tool. Its pulse survey feature provides employees a safe space to share their honest thoughts in a quick and simple manner. Users can also create custom polls and survey reports to give employees a voice and make sure they really understand their colleagues’ knowledge and sentiment levels. For managers, Officevibe also provides easy-to-share metrics on 10 key areas such as ambassadorship, personal growth and relationship with peers.
Google Sites
If you’re using Google Workspace, Google Sites is an excellent and user-friendly platform to help build basic websites. It offers very smooth integrations with all Google products (Docs, Slides and so on). And even better – you can install Google Analytics on your page in just a matter of seconds to get the full benefit of the platform – no code required. This is a great option if you’re looking to create a campaign home page or a repository for important content.
Source: Google With many companies embracing digitization, it’s exciting to think of the possibilities for internal communication. Rather than acting as a siloed function, internal communicators can now integrate digital tools directly into key processes and workflows to ensure that employees receive relevant information at the right time and through the right channels. We’ve shared a few of our favourite tools here, but over the coming years we expect to see some exciting developments within the digital communication space. So stay tuned!
We are also constantly innovating within Funk-e and working on new digital products. So if you’d like to be the first to test our latest and freshest ideas, you can sign up to our Beta Testing Program.Need help setting up your digital communication strategy? Get in touch with our Digital team!our partners
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