Your intranet is the backbone of your internal communications. However, launching a new intranet can be an exciting time, but it can also be overwhelming. Especially if you’ve put a lot of time and effort into the intranet and don’t receive the user adoption rates you anticipated. A great way to engage users and promote intranet adoption is by including employees in the intranet naming process.
Many of our customers do this by hosting an Intranet Naming Contest on their intranet, which not only gets users excited about the new intranet, but also gets them on the intranet to participate
Why You Need an Intranet Name
Having an intranet name provides an identity and many times a persona for your intranet. But this identity shouldn’t be created in a vacuum. If you want your employees to embrace and own your intranet, they must feel like they are a part of it. What better way to achieve this than by having your employees, the end users, help you name your intranet with an intranet naming contest?
Our clients have reported outstanding support and ownership of the intranet after a successful intranet naming contest, such as with Diversified Search’s intranet – DivShare. Some intranet names even help the intranet take on a persona of its own.
One fantastic example of an intranet name turned persona is Pima Federal Credit Union’s intranet named Dwight – the employee know-it-all, named after a character from the popular TV show The Office. Since naming the intranet Dwight, Pima Federal Credit Union has reported that engagement and intranet adoption have skyrocketed for the organization
Creating an Intranet Naming Contest
To successfully launch your own intranet naming contest, simply begin by creating an application using the “Suggestion Box” application. Using this application, you can customize the title and description of the application to let your employees know the purpose of the application and instructions for utilizing the Suggestion Box. A good place to start is by changing the name of the application to “Intranet Name Ideas” or “Intranet Naming Contest Entry”.
Once you’ve updated the content and changed the name, you are ready to build the application. From there, you can customize the fields you want in your entry form – these fields will be what users complete to submit their intranet name idea. To do this, select “manage fields” and select or remove any fields you wish.
Below is an example of how an end-user with view the “Intranet Name Ideas” entry form or suggestion form:
Now that you have created the Intranet Naming Contest application, it is important to let your employees know so they can submit their name ideas. The best way to do this is by creating a Message Box widget that links to the Intranet Naming Contest application to broadcast it to your intranet home page. We suggest including an image or engaging text that draws attention to the message box to ensure all users participate and submit an intranet name. Perhaps you can up the stakes and offer an incentive to the best intranet name entry!
Below is an example of what the Message Box widget will look like:
Choosing an Intranet Name
Once all employees have submitted their entries, you can begin the voting process. Enabling ratings on your application allows employees to vote for their favorite intranet name entries. By simply clicking the thumbs-up icon, it shows the user has “liked” that entry. The entry with the most “likes” will determine the winning intranet name.
Below is an example of how the results will appear and how users can vote for their favorite intranet name:
Alternatively, you can enable comments so that users can actually comment on the intranet name entry they like the best and/or discuss each other’s suggestions.
Success with Your Intranet Name?
Have you used a similar method to come up with your intranet name? And if so, what are some of the interesting intranet names your users came up with? Let me know by commenting below!
And be sure to book your free demo for our internal comms software! Not ready for a demo? Take our free assessment tool to see exactly what areas of your intranet need a little bit of love.
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