Bam. You finally have the idea. It’s big. It’s exciting. And if it works, it could change everything for your business.
Now, you need to communicate it to your team.
Sharing your vision proves harder than you anticipated. No one is free at the same time for a meeting. And when you finally do meet, you’re trying to articulate the value, but your team just isn’t getting it.
In the end, only half of what you said is written down, and there are more questions than answers.
Have you been there? Misalignment will make or break your company's growth and that’s why communication is so important.
Choosing the right internal communication tools to overcome common challenges can increase efficiency and align your team to perform better.
What if I told you you could slash most meetings and get better results? It’s 100% possible, and you can do it for free today (more on that later).
Let’s define internal communication tools, the types you should consider, some platforms to choose from and explore best practices to improve your workflow.
What is an internal communication tool?
An internal communication tool is any platform that helps you connect with your team and employees.
Internal communication software can include instant messaging, video meetings, project management tools, private webinars or podcasts, and more.
Types of internal communication tools
The medium you choose depends on your needs and overall communication strategy.
Key meetings: Whether it’s a live meeting on Zoom or a video message sent on Loom, you need a tool to easily sync with your employees on video.
Instant chats: Day-to-day needs can move fast. Quick chats help you solve minor concerns or share important ideas.
HR needs: You might need to get a consensus on a change for the office, share company news, or get important employee feedback.
Survey tools help get real-time responses and improve company culture and productivity.
Big vision communication: It might be an essential company update or something you must communicate to everyone simultaneously.
Webinars and other video conferencing apps help implement your big ideas. Or maybe getting everyone in the same spot is impractical, and you need a way to send a video message.
Team collaboration: Every team member should be equipped with communication tools to share their work and produce together (like cross-functional collaboration) at every stage of the process, across departments.
Preparation: So much time is wasted in meetings because someone didn’t prepare or a leader didn’t communicate well beforehand. Or maybe it’s challenging to focus and understand the meeting’s purpose.
Sending communication to prepare for meetings is just as important, if not more, than the meeting itself.
Why are internal communication tools so important?
People make great companies and products.
But if their teams cannot communicate effectively, they will not function as well as they could. Everyone suffers. The company. The product. The customer. No one wants to work in an environment full of confusion and unproductivity.
Internal communication is the difference between a successful company and one that struggles.
If you can improve your employees' engagement, you empower them and position your company for positive growth.
What to look for in internal communications tools
Have you ever tried fixing something with the wrong tool?
I once tried to insert a stubborn wooden dowel into my bookshelf. I didn’t have a rubber mallet and used the next best thing—a hammer.
Well, I was wrong.
The dowel went in. But the cheap wood caved in, too.
There are lots of great tools, each one with a specific function for a particular business type. Ask the following questions to narrow your choices:
1. Does it save me time?
While new tools can get exciting, they’re only bells and whistles if they cannot help you become more efficient.
You might not know if the solution saves you time right away. Implement a testing period to experiment while select team members take it for a spin.
If the tool proves itself, you can save time on meetings and get to executing your action items instead.
2. Can it improve results?
If the tool can save you time, that’s already a good sign. But ensure it’s also doing what it promises.
Depending on its proposed value, match it up to the results.
Are your meetings better because of it? Are the results so good you can’t see yourself not using the tools and returning to “normal”?
3. Is there a learning curve?
Every manager and executive knows it’s one thing to announce a change. It’s much harder to get people to believe and execute it.
The learning curve can be the biggest barrier when your team is adopting a new tool and persuading your team to change their habits.
Ensure the app has an easy onboarding process that doesn’t drastically slow down productivity while your team experiences its value.
Team members will see that value and embrace it more readily when familiarity is mixed in with the new. So, find a way to explain the new tool on their terms with something they already do and need, and verify that the tool feels natural during onboarding.
4. Is it within my budget?
Not every platform will meet your budget and needs. Find one that can scale with you and your team.
If you can use it in most stages of your growth, that’s one less transition and training you have to do. Instead, your employees can learn to master and rely on the tool from the beginning.
5. Does it offer key integrations?
Choose tools that easily plug into your tech stack. The more you can combine your workflows, the smoother your corporate communication process will be—plus a reduced learning curve.
6. Does it have the features I need?
Compare each tool’s feature list to the essential (and nice-to-have) functions that your team needs.
You’ll quickly discover some popular tools that might be great for many users but won’t meet your needs or may be out of reach behind a paywall. It will also help you better define what you’re looking for and which features your team can’t live without.
Best internal communication tools for fewer meetings & better teamwork
The following are great tools for better communication:
Loom
Calendly
Slack
AirTable
Google Workspace
Confluence
Typeform
1. Loom: Great for video messages and fewer live meetings
Teams can use Loom to send asynchronous (not live) video communication, including presentations, overviews, recaps, and more.
Loom helps you cut out most meetings. Instead of pulling everyone out of deep work, you can easily record your screen and yourself simultaneously. Naturally express your thoughts and ideas—just like in-person meetings.
You can also save time on your live meetings that do need to happen. By adding context ahead of time, your team can get started as soon as you meet without a long, tedious introduction.
The Loom Chrome extension and desktop app put your team's communication where they need it most for quick recording at their fingertips
No more timezone issues. No more calendar conflicts. Streamline your communication for increased productivity and a well-connected team.
You can record for free right now and see how easy it is to send a message.
2. Venngage: Great for visualizing information
When you want to present a project to your team, or report on analytics, graphics come in handy to put things in perspective. You can use common tools like Canva to create an infographic, but sometimes your template options are limited or it’s too time consuming.
Venngage is specifically created for businesses. You can create branded infographics in a few minutes (with hundreds of templates to choose from).
When it’s time to present your case, you can easily put all the relevant information you need in a professional, aesthetically pleasing visual. Showcase your infographic on async video tools like Loom.
3. Slack: Ideal for instant team chats
Slack is a great team communication platform. The text-based app organizes conversations by channels. When you need to talk about a certain client topic or share an exciting personal announcement, there’s a place for it. When someone sends you a message, you get a push notification right on your phone, similar to social media mobile apps.
The tool offers many integrations and works with virtually any top business platform. It’s a great base for quick communication and eliminating unnecessary emails.
4. Airtable: Perfect for project planning communication
Airtable supports robust workflows and project management boards. You can visually organize important processes and create your own functional app for your teams.
Establish clear expectations in your tables with team member assignments, and collaborate easily with your team members in-app.
Airtable combines project management features with effective communication to streamline your process.
5. Google Workspace: Your state-of-the-art collaboration suite
Whether you need to do a live meeting with Google Meets or collaborate in Google Docs, the company has many tools for internal communication. The best part is that they all work natively together.
Google is powerful for teams, especially for those spread out remotely (where you need to manage distributed teams) or within hybrid workplaces.
6. Confluence: Create your very own wiki and important reference docs
Documents add up, and they can be hard to track. Confluence allows you to create a user-friendly wiki and knowledge base for your internal communication.
You can organize your onboarding documents, guidelines, client notes, and more within the platform. It’s easy to navigate, and each team member is set up as a user, so you can tag employees and communicate on the page. There are also plenty of templates to choose from.
Each user has their own personal space so they can plan out their work before communicating with the team.
Provide great informational resources, improve the employee experience and workflow, and increase engagement within your team knowledge hub.
7. Typeform: Great for internal surveys and research
Sometimes you need a quick litmus test about what your team thinks.
It could be a new idea or your attempt to improve a process. Quickly send a survey with Typeform and get responses without needing to meet and coordinate with your team.
Best practices: How to build an internal communication workflow that works across teams
Instant messaging tools. Video conferencing platforms. The list of options goes on. How do you pick the right workflow for your workplace communication?
Employee engagement doesn’t have to be complicated. Follow these best practices to help prioritize your internal communication strategy:
Evaluate your existing communication channels
Audit your channels and ensure each of their integrations works smoothly and complements the others. Where are your team communications breaking down most often? Are your teams siloed on different platforms? The more seamless your system, the more likely your team will adopt your strategy and benefit fully from each tool.
Break down barriers
When team members want to communicate, it should be easy to reach out to the right person.
If an employee is working on a time-sensitive project, getting a key answer or feedback from critical decision-makers shouldn't take days. They should be able to communicate quickly and get a timely response.
Create an accessible organizational culture for communication where team members can talk to the right person when they need to.
If you’re using a platform like Loom, you can record a video message and send it immediately. The receiver can respond through a video message reply, making communication much more accessible (without worrying about matching busy schedules and time zones).
Choose the right tools
You’re reading this because you want to build a great stack. So we don’t need to emphasize how important each platform is to your success. Be quick to research and test, and slow to adopt until you find the right solution.
Your platform should tackle your biggest obstacles to quality communication. Is it scheduled? Is it visualizing ideas and issues? All the tools on this page help you collaborate with features that make remote, hybrid, or online communication feel “in-person”—with the best of both worlds.
Find a tool that offers multiple ways to express ideas
As you build your workspace and internal comms, try to prioritize the ones that offer many ways to get a point across.
For example, Slack allows integrations that allow you to start meetings, send voice messages, and more. Loom offers great options too, like employees can comment on video messages, reply by video, or even draw to illustrate a point while recording.
Imagine your digital workplace
It doesn’t matter what kind of office you have. Your employees could all be in the same building. Or they split their time between the office and home. Maybe they’re all over the world as part of your remote team. Either way, everything is becoming digital.
As you implement tools, think of it as your digital workplace. Just like you need a printer, wifi, and desk in the building, you also need its digital counterparts. Ensure your team has everything they need to succeed.
Invest in the best form of communication
It’s hard to beat face-to-face communication—but it’s not always possible, or the best use of time.
In today’s fast-paced and global environment, communication doesn’t have to be limited by time zones or location. Face-to-face doesn’t need to be physical.
Async video messaging makes personal communication possible.
You can easily record a message and send it to your team.
They can view it at any time, anywhere. With the right solution, they can also accelerate collaboration and continue the conversation (even while you’re asleep!). It’s the best way to connect with someone else without barriers.
Upgrade your internal communication today
Today, you can try async video messages with Loom. The platform makes it easy right from the start. You can easily record your screen and yourself as soon as you set up.
Send messages to your colleagues instantly and spark seamless 2-way collaboration.
With a click of a button, you can get the benefits of face-to-face communication wherever you are.
The best part? Loom is free to use. Try it now and see how it can improve your internal communication.