Features We Want to See in a ‘Facebook at Work’ Enterprise Service

By Don Reisinger

One of the first things Facebook must do with its enterprise social network is prove to customers that its service is actually relevant. LinkedIn has done that brilliantly by connecting people in the hopes of helping them build their businesses or careers. Facebook needs to find the same path to relevance by trying to help its users not only stay in contact but also build business. If it can’t achieve that, it’ll have real trouble.

Facebook is already big enough to provide a wide range of tools to customers. On one hand, it can be a social network, and on the other, it can provide collaboration tools similar to those like Skype for Business, Yammer and SharePoint. Some collaboration tools scaled for corporate work groups could go a long way toward improving Facebook at Work’s appeal.

Corporate customers will expect to be able to extend Facebook at Work with their internally developed apps and secure third-party apps. That’s why Facebook should launch its own application marketplace for Facebook at Work that would give third-party developers support and extend the basic service. The more third-party apps that are available for Facebook at Work, the more likely it will succeed.

Facebook has long been criticized by users concerned about the privacy of the personal information they post on the site. Some users argue that it’s too difficult to get data off the site. That can’t be an issue in the enterprise. Facebook must make it abundantly clear to corporate customers that proprietary corporate data is inviolate. Facebook won’t own the data in any form. Customers must be assured that they can take all of their data with them if they decide to leave the service. Absent that, Facebook at Work will fail.

Providing some back-end management for the IT side is another crucial component for Facebook at Work. The feature would allow IT managers to determine the level of access employees will have to the platform according to their roles and responsibilities. If Facebook at Work will be a collaborative tool, it needs to provide some back-end management.

Security is everything in the corporate world, especially if companies are entrusting another with sensitive data. Facebook must make security its top priority and guarantee not only that data will be kept as secure as possible but that its service’s uptime will be as close to 100 percent as possible. Uptime and security are crucial for Facebook at Work to, well, work.

It seems rather obvious that Facebook will include a chat function in the service, but the company should consider adding voice and video communication as well. Some of the better products on the market, including Skype for Business, support the three major communication avenues, which means there’s no excuse for Facebook to not follow suit.

Although it’s likely that Facebook at Work users would log in to the service with their personal credentials, the social network must ensure that there is a clear delineation between work and play. In some corporate environments, Facebook is banned entirely. Facebook must acknowledge that and reassure corporate customers that it won’t create an at Work environment that relies on giving users the ability to quickly and freely switch between their corporate and personal accounts.

While having a third-party app platform should help Facebook, the company shouldn’t shy away from partnering with companies like Microsoft, Google, IBM and others to find ways to integrate its service into their solutions. The more ways in which Facebook at Work can be utilized through tools companies are already employing, the better.

Although LinkedIn has a free tier as do other corporate social platforms, the general business model requires a premium service that generates subscriber revenue. The main reason for that, as Forrester analyst Rob Koplowitz points out, is that market is a “low margin business where cost of sales can be high.” While that means Facebook is certain to offer some kind of paid service, the company should at least consider keeping it free and finding other ways to generate cash. And yes, that might mean ads.