Here are a few examples of an oxymoron: “good grief,” “zero deficit,” and “jumbo shrimp.” Unfortunately, most people think “exciting intranet” is one too. This is far from ideal. After all, intranets can be an incredibly valuable tool for connecting employees in the enterprise. And connected employees are 70-percent more likely to meet customer needs.

One key to building a successful intranet is using the right modern cloud platform. But the requirements go beyond that. Here are seven tips for making a mobile social intranet people actually want to use:

1. Go where your users are.

One-point-two billion people used mobile apps in 2012. Employees can get almost anything they want related to their personal life on their mobile devices. They should also be able to access critical corporate information. Make your intranet mobile first.

2. Invest in making it easy and simple.

Your intranet isn’t a dumping ground for every piece of content on your corporate web site. Don’t try to build all the functionality that’s in the browser into the mobile app. It’s likely most of that information isn’t beneficial to the mobile user anyway. 

3. Give them a hook.

Your mobile first social intranet is only going to be successful if there are actual users. Put key business apps in your intranet as a way to bait your employees to login and try it out.

4. Get executives involved.

Getting the big dogs involved gives them a platform to share their messages with the company, while employees get visibility to key leaders they might not have otherwise. 

5. Have an engagement team.

Employees, particularly from the social media generation, expect real-time reactions. A good engagement team will know how to coordinate responses, and keep the conversation going when needed.

6. Invest in design.

Don’t just build an intranet to build it. Make it usable and desirable. One key to doing this is to seek out what users want first, and then design back from that.

7. Make it fun.

A little gamification can go a long way when it comes to keeping users engaged.

Offer contests, trivia, giveaways, and throwback posts within the intranet, so employees have to login to participate.

Do you want to focus more on driving business growth instead of infrastructure? Do you have the tools to innovate faster in a social and mobile world? Is Platform as a Service for you? This e-book cuts through the buzz to show the benefits platform as a service (PaaS) delivers from the recognized cloud platform leader, Salesforce.