Knowledge Management: ten best way to promote KM portal

echo "Knowledge Management portal is one of the important process of the total KM program of any organization. It helps in creating a platform for knowledge contribution, sharing and discussing for the employees of the organization. Important knowledge gaps can be identified and promoted here. The success lies in involving employees in visiting and participating in the portal. Here are some good tips to use for your portal. Note that this is not an internet portal so you have to use some different techniques to market it.

1) Know your visitors:

Yes we have to use different tools to market the portal but before that we have to know more on our visitors coming to the portal. Now let us find some answers to these questions. What is the time in the day your server is getting maximum visitors? Which computers frequently used to hit your site? Which section computers are not opening your site frequently? Answer to many such questions can be collected by tracking your visitors. Find a good tracking tool ( free tools are available ). Use the tool to find out hits from different IP and computers. This will tell you in which section of your organization have to focus on building awareness. Note that this is not internet portal and off line promotion plays an important role in promoting the portal.

2) Authors area:

Related Topics
• KM Portal • KM Basics • Knowledge Creating • Benefit of KM

Authors who contribute content for the site needs to know feedbacks, popularity, page views etc of their article or contribution. One area where they can see all such information related to their contribution will create interest among the authors and they will visit the portal frequently to check the messages, popularity etc. If you have email connected to the portal then system can send alert to the authors regarding postings, messages etc.

3)Offline Promotion:

Let us not forget the power of offline promotion. This is not an internet portal and within the organization we can create a strong brand awareness on the portal and circulate monthly bulletins highlighting the best contribution / articles with authors name will create strong awareness among all. Awareness programs in different sections of the organization should be taken up initially to make all the employees comfortable with the portal. Portal logo can be printed in some office stationary which are in wide use in the organization.

4)Recognition the key to success:

Recognition motivates us. Authors are to be motivated with due recognition in different areas. There can be many offline recognitions or awards but little online promotion can easily achieved by showing some parameters like, top ten authors, best ten departments in contributions, best ten contributions in terms of feedback or in terms of popularity ( hits ) etc. If possible top management can be requested to post their views selectively in some contributions and that will help in motivating the authors.

5) Ask their Views: ( On-line Poll )

Ask your visitors to give their opinion on various issues related to KM and the portal. This can be made as a regular feature by posting different questions in different times. After posting their views the visitors can see the result of the present and previous polls. This will create interest among the visitors and they will return to portal to see the result of the poll. This will also help in improvement plans of the portal.

6)Online newsletter:

One opt-in newsletter can be posted periodically to all the employees with details like hot topics, featured author, best articles etc to remind or motivate the member to visit the portal. The frequency and content of the newsletter should be carefully decided after studying work environment, culture etc

7)Communication and feedbacks

Interact offline with the senior officers or head of the section on various issues and features of the portal. Develop various index to give idea on popularity, participation level, hours spend on portal etc and circulate them among the departments / sections with the parameters of the individual departments.

8) Portal features and navigations:

Avoid using animation or big pictures or any thing to impress the visitors. Visitors will be happy to read good content and will back again if some new content is posted. So frequent updates and change in contents will bring the visitors back to the portal. As far as possible depending on the IT awareness level of the visitors the navigational menu etc has to be designed and updated so it will always be easy to browse through the site. If you have to keep some restricted areas in the portal and wants the member to login before viewing the section, it is better to show some sample of the content before. Many visitors would like to test the water before telling who they are. Finally the site must have one HELP page to explain different areas of the site and how to use it. One FAQ ( Frequently Asked Question) page also can be added to the portal.

9)IT infrastructure:

Keep an eye on the IT infrastructure and on the future plans of expansions. Depending on the traffic and its growth rate IT infrastructure is to be added or modified. Portal accessibility and speed is to be monitored time to time. Load on the server and the peak demand hours to be noted while taking up any maintenance work. Portal can be connected to mobile devices like cell phones, PDAs etc to send alerts on new postings, messages etc.

10)Support from top management:

Steering committee, Regular feedbacks, occasional postings,

Ten best way to promote your KM Portal.