Social Media for Law Firms: Ignite Internal Collaboration with Yammer

On last Friday’s #LegalChat on Twitter, the topic of using social media for internal collaboration came up. Several of us mentioned Yammer as a platform worth considering for large and multi-location firms.

Although the companies are not affiliated, a simple way to describe Yammer is a private version of Twitter.

“Enterprise social networking empowers employees to be more productive and successful by enabling them to collaborate easily, make smarter, faster decisions, and self-organize into teams to take on any business challenge. This new way of working drives business alignment and agility, reduces cycle times, increases employee engagement and improves relationships with customers and partners.”

If you’re open to a SaaS solution for enhancing organizational effectiveness and improving client service, Yammer offers some powerful capabilities:

1. Connect subject matter experts and facilitate real-time online conversations across the firm.
2. Create a dedicated team workspace for a matter, a practice area or a cross-functional group.
3. Use it with, or as an alternative to, a content management system to share, store, and manage documents, presentations, images and videos.
4. Create a secure external network to communicate/collaborate with clients and vendors — fewer phone calls.
5. Stay connected through mobile devices — just like Twitter.