HootSuite has launched a new service for internal communications called Conversations. It’s a collaboration tool that allows you to have real-time, internal conversations with everyone in your organisation or with individual teams, without leaving the HootSuite dashboard.
You can find out more by watching the overview video:
I asked internal comms pros via Twitter whether anyone has used it and what their impressions are. Mark Tillison @Tillison said: “Tried it. Binned it. Too many other internal comms channels. This would just get confusing. Nice idea though.”
Paul Thomas @Tallpaul75 works at Grant Thornton. He has been testing a product called CrowdControl for channel management and monitoring and said: “My team would get a lot from using HootSuite Conversations. The issue is getting them to use Hootsuite full stop. Discussion about what to tweet and not tweet is usually restricted to teams on our floor, so it’s usually a face to face conversation, Messenger chat or heaven forbid, an email.
“The functionality is useful. For a team split across locations, or when team members are working from home, it would work reasonably well. It would have to link up to our instant messaging system as I think people would still need a prompt to go and have a look. Also, tweets don’t always come from Twitter. Something that allowed me to jump to Conversations from my email client, or from a web page would be crucial additions. (I understand there are plans for upgrades and they seem to be about linking up with other programs).
“But the big problem for me personally is that it needs to be added to the iPad app. I use my iPad side by side with my laptop and mainly for Twitter. There are others in the team who would do the same. Indeed, most of us tweet more often from mobile devices than at the desk, so this need to happen quickly.”
Have you tried HootSuite Conversations? What do you think of it? You’re welcome to comment below.
Have you come across something which has helped to make your life easier? Do let other internal comms pros know – you can tweet me @AllthingsIC, share by tweeting @theICcrowd or contact me to propose a guest article for my blog, Rachel
Gosh, how did I miss this launch? My guess is it will look very interesting to a HootSuite user and probably to a Twitter user accustomed to other HootSuite style apps. I still use Tweetdeck and this functionality in Tweetdeck would be amazing.
To non-users I suspect it would look pretty scary and I’m not sure what the benefits would be over msn group chat or similar.