How a community manager can fire up Yammer

Editor’s note: This story is taken from Ragan Communications’ distance-learning portal Ragan Training. The site contains hundreds of hours of case studies, video presentations and interactive courses.

Often at a business networking event, a few well-connected people seem to know everybody.

As soon as you talk to them, they have ideas for the right people you should connect with, says Brian Duke, senior manager for communications channels and operations at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

This person will say, “You should talk to John or Sally or Sue, because they’re doing something in your space, and it would make sense for you to connect,” Duke says in his Ragan Training session, “Use the power of Yammer and SharePoint together to create communities that foster connections, collaboration and communication.”

This is how Duke—whose team includes four business managers and two email specialists—views the role of community manager.