Chatter is a great, and often overlooked part of the Salesforce system. As Salesforce customers get access to Chatter as part of their licence, AND Chatter has a free version in a lot of licenses, which allows all users to access a limited view of the system, it is quite a powerful tool!
In organisations, Chatter is the tool to help build the company culture. Emails are impersonal. They do not promote comment, sharing, and other interaction, in the same way Facebook or Twitter do. Chatter allows you to create a community around your business.
Chatter was once referred to as “enterprise social media”; which I think in ways scarred people away from implementing it. But if you put in place good guidelines, then you can easily overcome the “how will we control it” problem.
Chatter Post & Group Guidelines
Chatter groups can be setup for projects, knowledge sharing groups and teams. Standard groups have been setup for some business areas. Before posting or creating a group read the following guidelines: ( I have gathered these from multiple sources, such as Salesforce and other sites as well as my own ideas)
– If you create a public group, anyone can join, and posts can be seen by whoever views the group.
– Before you create a group, check that there isn’t already a group that could be used.
– Posts made in a private group can only be seen by members who have been added by the group owner.
– Before you post, ask yourself:
– “Who else would benefit from this?”
– “Is this relevant to our business?”
– Post “up the chain” to reach a broader audience. Posting a note to a user who is followed by many other users for example.
– Do participate by asking and answering questions and sharing information
– Do keep your posts relevant to work
– Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your HR team or executives to read
– Do keep it brief
– Don’t write long-winded posts
– Do post rather than send a “low-priority” email
– Don’t use Chatter to replace an in-person conversation
– Do use Chatter to address a wider audience and get feedback
– Do use groups rather than email distribution lists for collaboration
– Don’t post confidential information on profiles or public groups
– Do post files instead of emailing attachments
– Do think about who can see your post. (Anyone who is following a person or a record can see its Chatter posts.)
– Don’t post the same thing to multiple people