Best Social Media Tools for Your Remote Workspace

Working remotely can be a challenge, but believe it or not, some of the same principles that apply to social media could benefit your internal team. When your team is distributed across the country or the world, communications is key and finding ways to better connect everyone can make a big difference when collaborating on projects.

Some of the aspects of social media that can be applied to your employees, independent contractors and even vendors include:

1. Profiles of individuals with photos to increase familiarity
2. Places to post important messages with calls to action
3. Ways to communicate with others individually or as a group
4. Archives of photos, files and digital assets
5. The ability to access conversations and files via mobile device

Picking the right remote work tools for them to use is important. Here are some recommended tools to use that focus on communications, project and task management, and access to files and other digital assets.

Slack – One thing you’ll find when working with a remote team is that email falls short. A communications software solution like Slack lets your team easily organize and follow threads of conversations both in real time and asynchronously. You can even share files and make calls through Slack as well as access conversations on your smartphone. Every team member can add a photo and profile, and you can specify which team member can access each conversation. A similar tool is Microsoft Teams.

Asana – Every project is made up of a series of tasks, and Asana is an easy-to-use task management system for your team. Set up each team member with a profile, then create Projects with tasks and sub-tasks that you can then assign to individuals with deadlines, descriptions, links to resources, and even attached files that are relevant. Team members can comment on tasks, provide updates on their progress, and check off the tasks they complete. Asana sends everyone emails with a summary of upcoming tasks and deadlines or comments addressed to them. Think of Asana as a virtual workspace. Similar tools are Monday.com or Basecamp.

Google Apps – Any small business could benefit from the suite of online collaborative tools from Google including Google Docs (documents), Google Sheets (spreadsheets), Google Slides (presentations), and Google Drive to archive small and large files. Share any document, file or folder with select team members or your entire staff and control who can edit or simply view the item. You can even edit documents together in real time. A similar tool is the Zoho suite of apps.

Dropbox – A handy way to share larger files or files that need to be reviewed and commented on by your team is to use Dropbox, a file storage and sharing site. Dropbox can handle those bigger files you need to share such as videos. You can control who can view the files versus download them. Team members can comment on the files you’ve shared, whether they are photos, illustrations, lor audio or video files. A similar tool is Box.com.

While picking the right tools for team collaboration while working remotely is important, so is training team members on each new software solution you deploy. Make sure everyone is comfortable with each tool and also has the right devices to access those tools.

One last helpful tool: If background noise is an issue when you’re on conference calls with your team, get everyone to install an app like Krisp to their device to cancel out sounds like barking dogs and fussy toddlers. Your hard-working remote team will thank you!