YAMMER

USE CASE
CATALOG
Use Yammer to meet your organizations
business challenges.

 YAMMER USE CASE CATALOG

Yammer is a great way to connect with your coworkers and share information, but did
you know that using Yammer can help your organization reach its business objectives?
Browse the different strategic uses of Yammer and identify which solutions can help
your organization tackle its business challenges.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

08 Executive Communications

32 Building a Virtual IT Helpdesk

10 Supporting and Managing Innovation

34 Maximizing Your Sharepoint Investment

12 Mergers and Acquisitions

14 Identifying Expertise

MARKETING

16 Project Management

38 Customer Networks

18 Partner Communication

40 Managing Public Relations

20 Event Management

HUMAN RESOURCES
SALES

44 Onboarding New Employees

24 Maximizing Sales Effectiveness and Driving Revenue

46 Employee Engagement and Retention

26 Competitive Intelligence

48 Learning and Development

28 Aligning Sales and Marketing

CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
52 Strategic Communications

YAMMER USE CASE CATALOG

Table of Contents

YAMMER FOR
GENERAL USE & EXECUTIVES
08 EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
10 SUPPORTING AND MANAGING INNOVATION
12 MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
14 IDENTIFYING EXPERTISE
16 PROJECT MANAGEMENT
18 PARTNER COMMUNICATION
20 EVENT MANAGEMENT
Want to learn more about the benefits Yammer can bring to your business?
For The Total Economic Impact of Yammer (April 2011), Yammer commissioned Forrester Consulting
to examine the total economic impact and potential return on investment enterprises may realize by
deploying Yammer. Forrester conducted in-depth analysis of four mature, premium networks with 3,700
to 18,000 users, then compiled results into a composite model.
Based on a three-year term at list pricing, the composite organizations network of 7,000 users enjoyed
a 365% risk adjusted ROI and 4.3 month payback period with an NPV of $5.7 million.

The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, April 2011,

a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
How do you achieve greater transparency across your organization?

How to Get More Out of Yammer

1. Create a Yammer community and invite partners and

to delineate boundaries.

Use Yammer
Projects
can to
be achieve
difficultgreater
to coordinate
transparency
and execute
and accelerate
across a large
communication,
organization,
leading
evento
when
better
all
client-facing teams to join.
team members are
decision-making
and
in tighter
the same
alignment.
place. ButGain
whatinsight,
if theyre
cultivate
not?
How
innovation,
do
you
coordinate
and
connect
with
your
those
3. Use real-time messaging to respond to and collaborate
with
coworkers
distributed
who
workforce
are
traveling
with
Yammer.
or
located
in
remote
offices?
Use
these
tips
to
simplify
project
2. Create private groups within your partner community
partners efficiently.
management and deliver your projects on time.

How do you increase innovation and your competitive advantage?

How do you drive employee productivity across all levels of your business?
How do you align employees with your overall strategy and objectives?

1. Connect dispersed offices

and remote workers in
real-time.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Achieve greater transparency across your organization with Yammer. Tap into the collective
wisdom of your workforce and increase employee productivity with real-time collaboration.
Leverage your employees to reach your goals and grow your business.

2. Invite great ideas from your

employees and cultivate
innovation.

Benefits
3. Share your vision and

Gain visibility and insights across your organization to make better decisions.

strategy with your

organization instantly.

Connect dispersed offices, mobile teams, and remote workers in real-time to achieve business
results faster.

Cultivate innovation by inviting great ideas, harnessing collective wisdom, and brainstorming new ways to win.
Enhance productivity across your organization and reduce the duplication of work by connecting your
project teams and making strategies more visible to others.

SUPERVALU uses Yammer to improve information flow and increase transparency while helping retail
stores be more successful. With Yammer, SUPERVALU connects its extensive network of store managers
to share best practices in inventory management, product selection, and community engagement to
drive revenue.

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

4. Gain insight into the

entire business.

Initiative uses Yammer to foster and support global collaboration. Employees rely on Yammer to share
ideas and tactics to further innovation, improve operations, and stay ahead of the competition. Initiatives
executive team regularly uses Yammer mobile apps to provide updates when away from the office.

Executive Communications

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

SUPPORTING AND MANAGING INNOVATION

How can you develop new products and services that are reactive to the changing market?

How to Get More out

Out of
of Yammer
Yammer
Tips
1. Create a Yammer community and invite partners and

to delineate boundaries.

Since innovation
Projects
can be difficult
is the means
to coordinate
by which
and
organizations
execute across
remain
a large
competitive,
organization,
theyeven
must
when
foster
all an
client-facing teams to join.
team members
environment
that
areencourages
in the same
creative
place. But
thinking.
what There
if theyre
is
much
not?
value
How
do
to
you
be
gained
coordinate
from
with
the
insight,
those
3. Use real-time messaging to respond to and collaborate
with
coworkers
knowledge,
who
and
are
experience
traveling
of
or
your
located
workers.
in
remote
Generate,
offices?
capture,
Use
these
and
prioritize
tips
to
simplify
their
ideas
project
into
your
2. Create private groups within your partner community
partners efficiently.
management
social
networkand
fordeliver
an improved
your projects
competitive
on time.
position.

How can you ensure hierarchical structures dont act as barriers to the fluid exchange of ideas?
How can you come up with the best ideas?

1. Search to quickly identify

similar initiatives and
ideasyou might discover
a conversation about the
idea or suggestion you
wanted to share.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

To come up with the best ideas, organizations should turn to an efficient source of innovation:
their own employees. Yammer fosters innovation by connecting employees, ideas, and information
without regard to time zones, geographies, or hierarchies.

2. Encourage everyone in
your organization to share
ideas and suggestions
simply by posting a
message to followers.

Benefits
Improve employee contribution by flattening organizational hierarchies and lowering contribution barriers.
Encourage innovation, facilitate the capture of ideas, and create a spirit of collaboration.

3. Innovation management
can be facilitated when
your employees share and
discuss relevant topics
using idea-voting features.

Reward and recognize your employees by keeping track of your top idea generators and participants.
Increase innovation and contain costs by leveraging your existing employee base.
4. By connecting employees

http://www.suncorp.com.au/
Recreate PMS

to groups beyond their

immediate job function,
you may well find them
contributing valuable
insights. An idea felt to be
mundane in one group can
be valuable in another.

Yammer helps Suncorp uncover and implement innovative ideas by harnessing the collective
knowledge of employees across different teams, geographies, and brands.

10

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

Supporting and Managing Innovation

11

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

The pitfalls of mergers and acquisitions challenge todays leaders to manage change effectively
and efficiently. After a merger or acquisition, business owners need to align corporate goals, drive
employee engagement, and streamline their operations. Leverage these tips to manage change
within your organization.

How can you ensure a smooth transition after a merger or acquisition?

How can employees better connect with their new coworkers, teams, and departments?
How can you integrate and align existing systems and processes?

1. Before the closeCreate an

External Network to welcome
new employees to your
organization.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

In the case of mergers and acquisitions, the complexity of processes is compounded by the
difference in cultures. Effectively manage integration of acquired companies and streamline
your organizations change management strategy by merging corporate cultures on Yammer.

Benefits

2. After the close Add new

employees to their teams
or departments Yammer
Groups to connect them
directly to the right people
and the most useful
information.

Instantly connect to your new colleagues on Yammer in minutes.

Reduce employee turnover by responding immediately and honestly to questions, fears, and
rumors in real time.

Provide new employees with visibility into your organizations history, business processes, and
culture. Promote the merging of corporate cultures on your Yammer Network.

Keep employees engaged and updated on organizational objectives. Employees can learn about
their new coworkers areas of expertise and allocate the right people to the right project teams.
3. Suggest other Yammer
Groups for new employees
to join.

Customer
Success
Story

12

A Global Media Company uses Yammer for mergers and acquisitions with great success. Instead of
taking months to integrate their systems after a merger, with Yammer they were able to merge
two networks in one day to allow their employees to collaborate instantly.

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

Mergers and Acquisitions

13

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

IDENTIFYING EXPERTISE

By leveraging
Projects
can be
your
difficult
enterprise
to coordinate
social network,
and execute
you canacross
uncover
a large
expertise
organization,
across a global
even when
organization
all
team
to
broaden
members
the are
talent
in the
pool
same
for your
place.critical
But what
projects.
if theyre
Whonot?
is the
How
most
do you
relevant
coordinate
expertwith
in your
those
coworkers who
organization
forare
anytraveling
given project?
or located
Use these
in remote
tips to
offices?
identifyUse
expertise
these tips
across
to simplify
your organization.
project
management and deliver your projects on time.

How can you uncover hidden talent across your organization?

How can you harness the collective knowledge of your employees to build an
accessible knowledge base?

1. Encourage users to post

How can you remove barriers in the communication of expertise?

questions to the appropriate

groups to uncover experts
and receive quick responses.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

2. Find and follow topic

Yammer helps organizations solve business challenges by identifying hidden expertise across

experts. @Mention them to

engage and ask questions.

departments and silos. Find and connect with experts in real time, harness the knowledge of
your organization, and build a searchable knowledge base with Yammer.

Benefits

3. Organize content by

Improve business results with better access to content and hidden expertise.
Identify and connect with subject-matter experts quickly. Utilize User Profiles as part of the
expertise-identification process.

Solve business problems that involve highly skilled expertise and effectively leverage the collective
knowledge of your organization.

4. Have your employees complete their Profiles to

tagging message threads

with appropriate topic
names and placing them in
relevant buckets to make
them easily searchable.

highlight expertise.

5. Invite subject-matter experts to relevant groups.

Leverage subject-matter experts to create an accessible knowledge base for employees.

AARP uses Yammer to connect state and local offices that normally operate in geographic and
departmental silos. They leverage Yammer to find expertise related to specific communication
campaigns, volunteer efforts, and partner and vendor relationships.

14

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

Yammer provides value to Tyco by connecting globally dispersed teams and identifying expertise within
their organization. Employees use Yammer to ask questions and connect with subject-matter experts.

Identifying Expertise

15

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Projects can be difficult to coordinate and execute across a large organization, even when
all team members are in the same place. But what if theyre not? How do you coordinate with
those coworkers who are traveling or located in remote offices? Use these tips to simplify
project management and deliver your projects on time.

How can you collaborate on projects with your coworkers?

How can you locate expertise and leverage the collective knowledge of your organization
to meet project deadlines?
How can you find the right information when you need it?

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

1. Create a public group with

restricted membership
to collaborate with your
project team. Public group
messages will appear in
your My Feed.

Yammer simplifies project management. Connect globally dispersed project teams with one
another so they can work toward project deadlines more efficiently. Yammers search features
enable you, in real time, to find and connect with experts, and uncover useful information.

Benefits

2. Search Yammer topics and

user profiles to find subject
matter experts and staff
project teams according to
your coworkers expertise,
past experience, and
interests.

Get project teams up to speed quickly on Yammer and increase their productivity.
Work more efficiently with your project coworkers to meet deadlines, expedite the launch, and get
feedback.

3. @Mention a coworker to pull

them into the conversation
and get instant feedback.

Keep your coworkers and other teams informed about the projects youre working on and solicit help
from subject-matter experts. Yammer helps you allocate the right people for the right project teams.

Use Yammers robust search features to find and filter information relevant to what youre working on.

4. Upload documents to
Yammer and preview and
work on project deliverables
without leaving your feed.

5. Post real-time messages to

AAA uses Yammer to communicate across field-agent project teams. Employees used Yammer to
refine an 18-step business process down to just six steps, improving team productivity and
project budget spend.

16

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

your Yammer feed to foster

content-rich discussions across
globally and functionally
disbursed project teams.

Project Management

17

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

how to
How
to get
Get more
More out
Outof
ofyammer
Yammer

PARTNER COMMUNICATION

Communicating
Projects
can be difficult
with third-party
to coordinate
partners
and execute
and vendors
across
can
a large
be wildly
organization,
inefficient.
even
Creating
when an
all
team members
External
Network
arecan
in the
helpsame
bridge
place.
the disconnect
But what if between
theyre not?
yourHow
team
doand
youits
coordinate
outside business
with those
coworkersAccessible
partners.
who are traveling
through or
your
located
My Networks
in remote
drop-down,
offices? Use
External
these Networks
tips to simplify
are anproject
efficient
management
and
secure way
and
todeliver
communicate
your projects
with anyone
on time.
outside of your organization.

How can you speed up communication with your partner channel?

How can you collaborate with all your partners?
How can you build rapport and make your partners successful?

1. Connect employees to

Product Innovation

coworkers and relevant

1. Toggle
betweenyour
your
groups
by integrating
Internal and
External
Active Directory
with
your
Networks
Yammer
network.effortlessly
in your My Networks
menu.
2. Searchdrop-down
Yammer topics
and

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

user profiles to find subject

matter
experts
and staff in
2. Start
collaborating,
projectreal
teams
according
to
time,
with partners
your coworkers
and otherexpertise,
members of
past experience,
your teamand
by posting
interests.
questions, status updates,

Yammer speeds up communication between your team and external partners. Create an
External Network with partners to work efficiently together toward shared business objectives.
Strengthen your organizations partner relationships by increasing satisfaction and retention.

and ideas to your Feed.

3. @Mention a coworker to pull

Benefits

4. Post a poll in your External Network to

Get your partners up to speed quickly on Yammer and increase their productivity.
Respond to questions and receive feedback instantly to strengthen the communication between your
team and any number of external partners.

Reduce email clutter by keeping all project- or partner-specific conversations within relevant groups,
private message threads, or feeds with Yammer.

Build a strong sense of trust and community with partners and discover new opportunities for

crowd-source instant feedback from

partners on their experience working
with your team and what you can do
to work more efficiently.

3. Create a Yammer External

Network, then invite partners
them into the conversation and
and anyone else from your
get instant feedback.
organization to participate.

4. Upload documents to Yammer

and preview and work on

project deliverables without leaving your feed.

5. Post real-time messages to your Yammer feed to foster

pipeline growth.
content-rich discussions across globally and functionally
disbursed project teams.

Found from website recreated PMS

Thomson Reuters uses a Yammer External Network as a communication channel to connect and
collaborate with third-party vendors and consultants responsible for project deliverables.

18

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

AARP uses a Yammer External Network to coordinate efforts with third-party vendors. The network
helps team members communicate more efficiently, share, and collaborate on documents, and ensure
deadlines are met.

Partner Communication

19

YAMMER FOR GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

EVENT MANAGEMENT

Successful
Projects
canevent
be difficult
organizers
to coordinate
are creating
and execute
communities
across
around
a largetheir
organization,
events. Yammer
even when
for all
Event
team members
Management
facilitates
are in the
attendees
same place.
online-networking
But what if theyre
opportunities
not? Howbefore,
do youduring,
coordinate
and after
with events,
those
coworkers who
dramatically
increasing
are traveling
theiror
value.
located in remote offices? Use these tips to simplify project
management and deliver your projects on time.

How can you manage internal and external events?

How can you provide easy access to event communications and solicit feedback?
How can you keep employees, partners, and customers engaged during and after events?

1. Create a public
group with restricted
membership to engage
in discussions with the
right employees prior
to the event.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Yammer streamlines event management across your organization. Start Internal Groups on
Yammer to collaborate with coworkers, and create External Networks to connect with thirdparty partners, vendors, and customers before, during, and after events. Utilize Yammer to

2. Create an external
network to engage
in discussions with
attendees outside
your organization
around your event.

make planning and executing your events more efficient.

Benefits
Streamline event management by creating an Internal Event Group and External Event Network for eventmanagement teams and attendees.

3. Import Twitter event updates

into your Yammer Networks,
using the #yam tag.

Support interaction between participants before, during, and after the event. Solicit real-time feedback.
Allow attendees to access event content anytimeeven if they are unable to attend the event in person
and be able to ask questions and discuss issues.

4. Share event materials

with those in your Group
or External Network who
cant make the live event.

AMD uses Yammer to make company events more engaging. Before events, AMDs team uses
Yammer for posting polls and questions to crowd-source interests and prioritize event topics and
sessions. During events, they use Yammer for everything from live-polling attendees to uploading
event photos and videos in real time.

20

GENERAL USE AND EXECUTIVES

Burton uses Yammer to connect employees at snowboarding events with their coworkers back
at the Burton HQ.

Event Management

21

YAMMER FOR SALES

24 MAXIMIZING SALES EFFECTIVENESS AND DRIVING REVENUE
26 COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
28 ALIGNING SALES AND MARKETING

Wondering how Yammer can help grow new business and build customer value?
In The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, customers reported that in employee surveys, Yammer
was found to be useful in many instances, including its ability to connect research divisions with market
teams to find customers for products developed.
Moreover, all organizations stated that employees on the frontlines of customer interaction provided
effective feedback through Yammer that drove improvements in policies and procedures as well as
real business results.

The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, April 2011,

a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.

YAMMER FOR SALES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

MAXIMIZING SALES EFFECTIVENESS AND DRIVING REVENUE

In todays fast-paced business environment, finding the right material at the right time is critical to
increasing sales. Salespeople need to quickly and effectively establish an effective dialogue with
their customers.

How can sales representatives find valuable account insight critical to closing deals?
How can your field sales representatives better access information?
How can you harvest the knowledge of your sales reps and disseminate it across your team?
How can you ensure your sales team does not reinvent the wheel for every opportunity?

1. Create a public Sales Group

with restricted membership
to collaborate with your
sales team.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Yammer can maximize your sales teams effectiveness. Salespeople will have better account
insight, instant access to experts, and enhanced information while theyre on the road. The
ability to connect with participantspartners, customers, and employeeswill help sales teams

2. Encourage your sales teams

to @Mention subject-matter
experts to pull them into
sales conversations.

close business faster.

BENEFITS

3. Post messages to your

Leverage the collective knowledge of your organization to help sales teams work more effectively,
efficiently, and productively.

Yammer feed to share best

practices, account insights,
and sales strategies with
your peers.

Quickly find the information and subject-matter expertise you need to put together a winning pitch.
Enable your sales team to exchange information in a peer-to-peer collaborative environment. Share the
best content and strategies with peers on Yammer.

4. Enable anywhere, anytime

access to structured, relevant,
and proven content.

Create a collective repository of sales intelligence that is reused and regenerated.

5. Organize content by topics to

enable sales representatives
to find information quickly.

Customer
Success
Story

24

SALES

For real-time support from their corporate office to close deals, field representatives from an Online
Group Buying site access Yammer from their iPads.

Maximizing Sales Effectiveness and Driving Revenue 25

YAMMER FOR SALES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE

In todays increasingly competitive environment, its important for firms to understand theiras well
as their competitorsplace in the market. Organizations struggle with how to better invest resources
to maximize their competitive-intelligence capabilities. Start leveraging your Yammer Network for
competitive insight with these tips.

How can you ensure that your sales team is prepared to compete in challenging
business environments?
How can you enable communication across every level of your organization?
How can you acquire expert opinions in support of your intelligence analysis efforts?

1. Encourage members of

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

your sales team to post

key strategic wins and
share competitive insights
with their coworkers.

Real-time competitive information enables organizations to better understand their strengths

and weaknesses in relation to the marketplace in order to maximize sales. Connect your
entire organization and share sales insight and competitive intelligence on Yammer.

2. Organize competitive wins by

tagging each message with
relevant topic names like the
name of the account won or
other competitors considered
by the new customer.

Benefits
3. Share competitive

Leverage your organizations aggregate sales experience around competitive intelligence.

Give sales representatives a competitive edge by harnessing the collective intelligence of your
workforce on Yammer.

documentation, reports,
and analyst findings with
the appropriate employees
on Yammer.

Improve your competitive position. Gather, analyze, and disseminate relevant, real-time
intelligence about your competitors activities in order to further your own business goals.

Develop a collaborative culture across your organization. Sharing on Yammer allows you to extend

4. Disseminate competitive
information across your
organization quickly.

the reach of your intelligence to anyone in your organization who may find it useful.
5. Mine your internal sources
competition.

To remain an industry leader, PayPal has turned to Yammer to share news and competitive insight,
and continuously refine and perfect their product.

26

SALES

AAA uses Yammer to stay ahead of the competition. By providing a real-time communication
platform to employees, theyre able to share insight and competitive intelligence across their
organization efficiently.

Competitive Intelligence 27

YAMMER FOR SALES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

ALIGNING SALES AND MARKETING

One of organizations biggest barriers to success is the divide between sales and marketing. When
marketing messages are not consistent, the burden of positioning your offering falls on sales. If sales
people do not work efficiently with marketing, it can result in lost opportunities. This disconnect
can lead to longer sales cycles and push customers to competitors. Merge the efforts of sales and
marketing by following these tips.

How can your sales representatives spend less time looking for leads and creating messaging?
How can your marketing team better align with sales and its objectives?
How can sales representatives in the field stay updated on the latest and greatest
marketing materials?

1. Foster real-time discussions

between sales and marketing.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

The best-run organizations align sales and marketing. Yammer can help your organization
outpace the competition by hastening sales and producing optimal leads. Build a real-time
communication channel bridging your organizations marketing strategy and sales process.

2. Ask for and receive instant

feedback on marketing
programs and materials
from your coworkers.

Benefits
Generate high-quality, consistent marketing messages and sales-ready leads with enhanced collaboration
between teams.

Facilitate agreement on a common language that describes a marketing lead and a sales-ready lead.
Increase the transparency of your organizations marketing programs by posting updates and keeping
teams informed. Enhanced visibility will allow sales representatives to leverage existing resources rather
than reinventing the wheel.

Align goals by leveraging marketing as an extension of your sales team.

Refine marketing materials from the field by crowd-sourcing coworkers feedback in real time.

28

SALES

3. Give your sales team more

visibility into the marketing
projects and campaigns you
already have active.

4. Post messages to announce

campaign updates, new leads,
and marketing materials
available to sales.

Aligning Sales and Marketing 29

YAMMER FOR IT
32 BUILDING A VIRTUAL IT HELPDESK
34 MAXIMIZING YOUR SHAREPOINT INVESTMENT

Want to know how Yammer can support information sharing and IT operations?
Customers interviewed for The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, reported significant time
savings with Yammer as employees now had better access to subject-matter experts. Search time
was reduced as was time spent on meetings, email, and coordinating teamwork across time zones.
At one company, the technologists were the most active users, with large groups of 600700
members using Yammer groups for formal communications and day-to-day discussions regarding
information sharing and large-scale IT infrastructure projects.

The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, April 2011,

a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.

YAMMER FOR IT

How to Get More Out of Yammer

BUILDING A VIRTUAL IT HELPDESK

Transform your IT Helpdesk from a high-touch function to a more automated, self-service system
with Yammer. Experience faster time to resolution and a reduced number of support tickets, while
improving your departments productivity and user satisfaction.

How can you reduce repetitive IT cases?

How can you reduce your departments response time to critical issues?
How can you help make employees more self-sufficient?

1. Create a public IT Helpdesk

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Integrate Yammer with your existing applications to manage your IT requests efficiently.
Create an IT Helpdesk Group on Yammer for employees to deliver issues, requests, and

Group with restricted

membership to manage
issues, requests, and
questions from employees
in real-time. Public group
messages will appear in
your My Feed.

questions to your department in real time. Enable self-help, access to peer expertise, and
a searchable knowledge base to reduce total time to problem resolution.

Benefits
Identify, diagnose, and resolve difficulties before they impact vital business processes. Leverage
the knowledge of your entire team, including super users, to resolve issues quickly.

Build an accessible and searchable IT knowledge base to enable employees to become more
self-sufficient.

Integrate Yammer with your existing IT applications and realize faster time to value.
Create bi-directional dialogue with users to foster better partnerships.
2. Deliver broadcast messages
to employees with status
updates when experiencing
down time or technical
difficulties.

32

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Building a Virtual IT Helpdesk 33

YAMMER FOR IT

How to Get More Out of Yammer

MAXIMIZING YOUR SHAREPOINT INVESTMENT

Organizations can facilitate adoption, innovation, expertise location, and real-time

communication in just minutes by implementing Yammer for SharePoint.

How can you maximize your SharePoint investment?

How can you drive SharePoint adoption and employee engagement?
How can you access and share content created in SharePoint?
1. Place a Company Feed,

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Group Feed, or My Feed to

add real-time messaging
to any page within your
SharePoint site.

Yammer complements an organizations deep investment in SharePoint by making it more

social, mobile, and engaging. With Yammer for SharePoint you will be able to drive SharePoint
adoption, increase employee engagement, and provide the ultimate collaboration experience.

Benefits
Implement Yammer for SharePoint in just minutes. Simply drag and drop a Feed onto any SharePoint site
and the web-part configuration is complete.

2. Leverage side-by-side
search results from
Yammer and SharePoint to
scan and discover content
in the same place.

Connect employees to the information they need by embedding a Yammer Feed on any SharePoint site,
eliminating the need to toggle between them.

Find information and connect with experts faster. Integrate Yammer Search with SharePoints Enterprise
Search and unify Yammer and SharePoint Profiles.

Facilitate fast and efficient content sharing by integrating your SharePoint document library, calendar
events, and tasks into your Yammer Network.
3. Post documents, calendar
events, and tasks from
SharePoint with coworkers
in the Yammer Network to
share information across
your organization.

34

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Maximizing Your Sharepoint Investment 35

YAMMER FOR MARKETING

38 CUSTOMER NETWORKS
40 MANAGING PUBLIC RELATIONS

Want to better market your company and serve your customers?

The Total Economic Impact of Yammer found that visible collaboration and communication on
Yammer led to significant project cost savings from duplication of work and reorganization of
processes. Key examples from two organizations:

When a team shared information about a successful online promotional program on

Yammer, seven other teams were able to repurpose it, saving the company
approximately 5,040 man-hours

Another organization discovered an 18 step process could be streamlined to 8 steps,

saving 20 minutes per week for 650 agents. This 66% reduction in processing time
also greatly improved customer service and retention

The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, April 2011,

a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.

YAMMER FOR MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

How to Get More Out of Yammer

CUSTOMER NETWORKS

Engaging in ongoing conversation with your customers is a great way to develop lasting relationships
that pay off for both sides. Create a mutually beneficial social community where customers and
prospects can network and share information with each other and your organization. Get your
external networks up and running with Yammer in just minutes.

How can your organization better connect with its customers?

How can you actively build a sense of community and trust with customers?
How can you leverage partner channels to communicate with customers?

1. Create and administer

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

an unlimited number of
customer networks. Invite
internal and external
colleagues regardless of
email domain.

Yammer External Networks provide organizations with a secure, private space to communicate
with their external business contacts. Taking just minutes to create, Yammer External Networks
enable you to deepen your customers sense of engagement and brand loyalty, and strengthen
their ties to your organization.

2. Engage customers in
conversations around
new product releases and
crowd-source feedback in
real-time.

Benefits
Easily extend Yammer beyond the firewall and collaborate with your customers with very little effort.
Create, participate in, and quickly toggle between multiple networks.

3. Deliver product
announcements to your
customer community.

Build trust and satisfaction within your customer community by responding to feedback.
Generate buzz around new products and address customer concerns by fostering discussions and
engaging with your customers.

Create a direct sense of connectedness with target customers and get them using your product/service.

4. Respond to customer
questions, complaints,
and other issues as soon
as they arise.

Boost loyalty, retention, and repeat business by having customers talk about your organization and
products between purchases.

Razorfish, a global digital marketing company with over 2,500 users in 16 offices, uses Yammer
External Networks to collaborate between client teams and customers. With Yammer, they are able
to quickly share links to content, ask questions about collateral and perform content review without
a single email, resulting in increased customer satisfaction.

38

MARKETING

5. Create a public Customer

Feedback Group with
restricted membership
to share feedback from
customers with other teams
in your organization.

Customer Networks 39

YAMMER FOR MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

How to Get More Out of Yammer

MANAGING PUBLIC RELATIONS

Organizations interested in improving their reputations and relationships understand the

importance of utilizing public relations in their everyday operations. Whether you have
an in-house PR department or work with an outside agency, you can utilize these tips to
improve PR management in your organization.

How can you better design and implement your public relations plan?
How can you better manage relationships with the media?
How can you streamline the development and delivery of press releases, speaking
engagements, and analyst interviews?

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Organizations are constantly looking for ways to optimize the creation of press releases and
public relations strategies. Design and implement your PR plan efficiently and effectively by

1. Create a public PR Group

with restricted membership
and add members of your
team. Public group messages
will appear in your My Feed.

2. Post and discuss media

coverage and crowd-source
feedback from coworkers in
real time.

leveraging Yammer for Public Relations Management.

3. Upload PR plans to Yammer
and collaborate on them
without leaving your Feed.

Benefits
Work more efficiently with your coworkers to define PR goals, target audiences, plan activities, and craft
compelling press releases. Reduce time from content strategy to delivery.

Reach out to masses of people by creating private and secure external networks for your customers
and the media.

Train employees on how to effectively communicate with the media, particularly during events
and interviews.

Effectively collaborate with colleagues and third-party vendors to plan events, meetings, programs,

4. Create an External Network

to collaborate with your PR
agency, suppliers, and the
media. Create an External
Network to collaborate with
media.

speaking engagements, and other forms of communication.

Hill and Knowlton, a communications consultancy company specializing in marketing, corporate, digital,
public relations, and public affairs services utilizes Yammer to advise their clients. Yammer has helped
them improve client service, boost business performance, and foster a global sense of community.

40

MARKETING

Managing Public Relations 41

YAMMER FOR
HUMAN RESOURCES
44 ONBOARDING NEW EMPLOYEES
46 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND RETENTION
48 LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Want to improve employee engagement and the time to value of new employees?
Organizations interviewed for The Total Economic Impact of Yammer reported employees felt more
connected and had faster access to information, yielding significant benefits:

new hires were able to quickly integrate into company culture and more quickly ramp, leading
to a 10% reduction in overall training costs

high engagement workers who logged in daily and medium engaged workers who logged in
several times per week enjoyed 1.4% and 0.7% increases in productivity

Yammer gave employees a common venue of interaction that transcended departmental silos and
developed a sense of community. Survey results from one company showed that employee engagement
scores improved for the first time after 5 years, between 7 to 11 percentage points.

The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, April 2011,

a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.

YAMMER FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

ONBOARDING NEW EMPLOYEES

Getting new employees engaged and productive quickly is critical in overall workforce productivity.
Use Yammer for onboarding to connect new employees to job-relevant people and knowledge
throughout your organization, accelerating their time-to-productivity and reducing costs.

How can you onboard

collaborate
newwith
employees
all your in
partners?
your organization?
How can you build
speedaup
sense
communication
of community
with
and
your
connectedness
channel? among coworkers?
How can you accelerate
build rapport
time-to-productivity
and make your partners
for new
successful?
hires?

1. Create a Public Group with

restricted membership for
new hires to help them find
important information and
get up to speed quickly.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Accelerate new-employee assimilation with Yammer and boost your organizations productivity.
Create groups on Yammer to connect new hires with onboarding materials and coworkers.
Aligning new employees to corporate goals and connecting them with peers will help them feel

2. @Mention subject-matter
experts to pull them into
the conversation to respond
to questions.

part of your company right from the start.

3. Upload relevant

Benefits

onboarding documents
useful to new employees.

Significantly reduce costs and the initial training cycle for new employees. Reduce the cost and
resources spent on new-hire training and provide access to potential mentors and subject-matter
experts through Yammer.

Improve time-to-productivity by taking advantage of prescribed information and real-time learning.

Increase sense of connectedness within your organization by aligning new team members with
corporate strategies and objectives from Day One.

Polycom uses Yammer to connect new hires with their coworkers, teams, departments, and HR
subject-matter experts. Yammer helps Polycom keep employees connected and engaged with their
organizations business objectives from day one.

44

HUMAN RESOURCES

4. Post real-time messages

to your Yammer Feed to
crowd-source feedback
about your organizations
onboarding process.

Nationwide uses external Yammer communities to onboard new hires and interns. New hires can
connect with their coworkers and familiarize themselves with Nationwides company culture prior
to their start dates.

Onboarding New Employees 45

YAMMER FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND RETENTION

Using Yammer in your organization can make knowledge and work more transparent, increasing
employee engagement. Employees will be able to receive real-time feedback and instant recognition,
and feel more connected to their organization. Engage your employees and improve organizational
performance with Yammer.

How can you keep employees working efficiently toward the business objectives of your
organization and simultaneously reduce employee turnover?
How can you reduce duplication of work and eliminate barriers to productivity?
How can you improve engagement and, ultimately, your bottom line?

1. Create a public group to

communicate with your
geographically disbursed
employees regarding
company wide initiatives.
Public group messages will
appear in your My Feed.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Successfully eliminate the barriers to productivity and enhance your organizations ability to
promote employee engagement with Yammer. Keep employees engaged with the objectives of
your organization and connect your organization through real-time collaboration.

Benefits

messages from executives

on Yammer.

3. @Mention experts to

Improve business results by connecting your global workforce. Connected employees will drive innovation
to move the organization in the right direction.

Increase employee retention and engagement, while boosting career advancement. Enable peer-topeer feedback and recognition to build stronger relationships.

Improve morale and work satisfaction by allowing employees to ask questions, share ideas, and find
resources more easily.

Increase productivity and empower employees to reach company goals.

Deloitte Australia uses Yammer to measure and improve employee retention. An analysis of
employee engagement revealed that employees with ten or more posts on Yammer had an
average turnover of just two percent, and were eight to ten times more likely to stay with
Deloitte than those who were less engaged with their coworkers on Yammer.

46

2. Broadcast company

HUMAN RESOURCES

instantly bring them into

conversations around
organizational objectives.

4. Upload and collaborate on

plans on Yammer and obtain
real-time feedback

5. Encourage senior
management to like and
comment on posts, fostering
a collaborative environment
and instant recognition.

Yammer is where 7-11s employees collaborate and share best practices. Employees are now better
able to connect, engage, and share insights with other employees in the field.

Employee Engagement and Retention 47

YAMMER FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

How to Get More Out of Yammer

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Yammer for Learning and Development can accelerate the flow of knowledge throughout your
organization and empower your employees to learn in a connected environment. Break down
barriers, connect employees, and disseminate information.

How can your employees tap into the collective knowledge of your organization?
How can you leverage employee expertise to train employees?
How can you keep up with the changing learning needs of todays workforce?

1. Create a Public Group with

restricted membership and
invite trainees to take part
in an interactive training
session with their peers.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

Yammer facilitates learning and employee development by connecting your organization
to enable knowledge sharing. Tap into your employee base for instant expertise, while

2. Host a Group Q&A session

strengthening learning and development in your organization.

Benefits

and answer questions from

directly from the trainees.

GRADUATE
INTERN
HANDBOOK

Increase trainee interaction by connecting geographically dispersed new hires undertaking similar
learning programs.

3. Get real-time updates on

subject matter relevant to
your Groups training.

Build peer relationships that can be tapped into for instant expertise and instantly connect employees
to knowledge that translates into performance.

Tap into content created by your employees and make it a part of your training program.
Gain a competitive advantage by working more efficiently with your coworkers and learning faster
than your competitors.

4. Upload group training

documents and @Mention
employees to start a
content-rich discussion.

5. Organize content by

Boehringer Ingelheim uses Yammer to distribute language-learning materials and software directly
to its employees, cutting training costs and reaching employees in all of its global offices.

48

HUMAN RESOURCES

tagging message threads

with appropriate topic
names and placing them in
relevant buckets to make
them easily discoverable.

Learning and Development 49

YAMMER FOR
CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS
52 STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

Wondering how Yammer might be able to help company-wide communications?

In The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, all organizations interviewed noted that Yammer helped
improve vertical communication. Yammer enabled:

management to clarify corporate positions on a relevant issues and bring those messages to the field

leadership to get direct employee feedback not filtered through layers of management

any employee to get the pulse of the company with the bubble up of trends

Moreover, several customers stated Yammer became a forum for the positive reinforcement of success.
Employees emerged as thought leaders or role models through Yammer interaction, while publicly viewed
praise reinforced behavior that drove success and business results.
The Total Economic Impact of Yammer, April 2011,
a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.

YAMMER FOR CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

How to Get More Out of Yammer

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

An organizations reputation is built through messages disseminated by the company to employees

and customers. Both management and employees at all levels must work together in pursuit of the
companys values and goals. This is done through two-way internal communications up and down the
hierarchy with Yammer.

How can you reduce email and build a reliable & secure communication channel with employees?
How can you develop efficient feedback loops between employees and management?
How can you keep employees informed about strategic initiatives?
How can your executives communicate directly with anyone beyond their immediate associates?

1. Create a public group to

communicate with your
geographically disbursed
employees. Public group
messages will appear in
your My Feed.

THE YAMMER SOLUTION

2. Share your crisis

Improve the effectiveness of your corporate communications strategy with Yammer.

communications plan on
Yammer.

Connect employees directly to executives, relevant groups, and useful feedback. Get all
of your organizations critical communications in one place and take your business to
the next level by fostering collaboration across all levels of the hierarchy.

Benefits
3. Get the word out quickly

Enable faster decisions by highlighting important information quickly and pulling decision makers
into conversations.

Strengthen employee contributions by keeping them connected to and informed about important initiatives.
Develop efficient feedback loops between employees and management to continuously improve
employee productivity.

with broadcast messages

for crisis communications,
organizational updates, and
HR-related policy.

4. Post real-time messages

from executives to the
entire organization.

Improve business responsiveness and enhance overall enterprise productivity with real-time collaboration.
Facilitate quick, effective decision making during a crisis that can save your companys reputation,
reduce downtime, and minimize business impact.

eBay uses Yammer to communicate project-specific updates and company-wide announcements

directly to employees. eBay leverages Yammers open and collaborative platform to keep their
organization connected.

52

CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

5. Crowd-source feedback on
strategic initiatives from
your employees efficiently.

Hult International Business School uses Yammer as its primary connector between students, faculty,
staff, and alumni. Hult students use the Yammer iPad app to stay connected to their peers.

Strategic Communications 53

For more information contact your Yammer Sales Representative or call 1.888.926.7377
www.yammer.com | contactsales@yammer-inc.com

10/2011