Effective internal communication is important as it keeps teams informed, connected, and on the same page. It helps create a more cohesive unit and boosts productivity, efficiency, and engagement.
While effective communication is important for all businesses, the best tools for each business will vary based on company goals, team size, location, and other variables.
For that purpose, we’re breaking down the best internal communication tools based on varying business needs.
How to choose the right internal communication tools for your business
With thousands of internal communication tools on the market, it can be difficult to decide what's best for your company. However, some of the following questions and considerations can help point you in the right direction.
- Team size. How many people will use the tool?
- Budget. How much can you spend?
- Business need. Do you need a tool for a fully remote team, field workers, international team, or in-office staff?
- Communication goal. What’s your company’s goal for the tool? Do you want to improve efficiency, boost collaboration, build culture, or close communication gaps?
- Ease of use. What does the onboarding and training process entail?
- Integration capabilities. Do you need the tool to integrate with other software?
- Tool scalability. Will the tool scale with your business?
Top 18 internal communication tools in 2023
Here’s a list of the top-rated internal communication tools for 2023. From project management to video conferencing – these are tools to cover every communication aspect in your company.
Project management
Project management tools help teams stay organized and complete projects successfully. Usually, PM software is designed to plan, track, and manage projects from launch to completion. These tools live in a virtual and collaborative space, show each team member’s workload, and track status.
- Asana. With stellar customer reviews, Asana is a staple in the project management space. It’s a versatile software with features like task management, scheduling, time tracking, project completion visualizations, and more. Asana, suitable for all business sizes, has more than 200 integrations and an API, ensuring you can easily connect it to tools in your existing workload.
- ClickUp. A newer member in the project management space, ClickUp quickly grew into a crowd favorite because of its connectivity, visualization, and ease of use. The platform allows users to assign and manage tasks, chat internally, track time, visualize project status, and more. The tool is suitable for all business sizes and industries.
Other project management tools to consider: Trello, Jira and Monday.
Messaging
Internal messaging tools allow you to communicate quickly and efficiently with staff. Many tools fall into this category, including SMS software and instant messaging apps. Overall, these tools provide a great way for teams to share information, documents, photos, and more.
- Textline. Textline is the most secure and robust SMS platform on the market that lets you communicate with your staff quickly. It’s best for sending announcements to staff, coordinating field teams, and instant communication. It comes with a long list of integrations, an open API to integrate with your current tools, and many features for bulk, group and individual texting.
- Slack. With thousands of integrations, Slack is perhaps the most popular instant messaging tool for businesses of all shapes and sizes. features include one-to-one messaging, channels, group messaging, mentions, live chat, video calling, audio recording and many more that make it a staple for remote teams.
- Microsoft Teams. This messaging software is great for businesses that use Microsoft products. The software helps teams collaborate easily with instant messaging, communication channels, video calls, and document sharing, among else. It supports 700 integrations making it easy to customize according to your needs.
Intranet
Intranet software allows companies to create private online networks for employees. The intranet serves as a virtual workspace and provides seamless access to company information, applications, documents, and data. The goal of these networks is to keep employees informed, engaged, and connected through one central location.
- Microsoft SharePoint. SharePoint is Microsoft’s intranet platform that works seamlessly with its other products. SharePoint has an extensive feature list that includes company calendars, forums, file sharing, and messaging. It’s built for teams of all sizes.
- Workplace by Meta. This tool is a great option for companies that want a personal employee Intranet with a familiar feel to Facebook. Workplace by Meta has features like automatic translation, group chats, surveys, search engine, knowledge libraries, and more. It allows teams to collaborate easily, share social updates, and stay on the same page.
- Happeo. Happeo, especially helpful for remote and hybrid teams, helps brands connect people, conversations, and documents. Happeo has tailored solutions for enterprise businesses, small businesses, and startups. Its features include advanced search, content libraries, announcement posts, and integrations with Google and Microsoft.
- Workvivio. Workvivio provides space for teams to collaborate, post updates, gain feedback, and socialize. Workvivio ensures team members have a voice and access to vital resources such as apps, documents, policies, and more. Plus, they can interact through live streams, videos, news articles, podcasts, and a social media-like activity feed.
Internal knowledge management
Knowledge management software serves as a central repository of companies helping them to create, store, organize, and easily retrieve internal practices and knowledge bases.
- Trainual. This software helps companies create and keep a well-organized library of onboarding, training, and process documents. The software makes it easy for businesses to document operating procedures, update materials, create repeatable processes, assign training workflows, and define role-based responsibilities. Trainual is great for small to medium-sized businesses looking to train and scale their team in an organized way.
- Guru. This software is an internal wiki that helps organize, access, and verify the accuracy of important company information. The software uses artificial intelligence to provide real-time alerts, duplicate detection, and content suggestions to staff. Guru, which operates on the cloud, is made for any business size.
- Document360. This internal knowledge management system makes it easy for teams of all sizes to break down knowledge silos. The software lets companies create one source of truth, provide clarity about processes and procedures, and encourage knowledge sharing among employees. Its standout features include bulk publish, bulk move, and a smart editor.
File sharing
These tools let organizations easily access, share, and collaborate on files. They give users access to a shared storage space where they can download, upload, and access files. These tools are especially helpful if files need to be accessed by multiple parties or if they are too large to share over other internal communication methods.
- Google Drive. Google Drive is a popular tool used by businesses of all sizes because of its ease of use, accessibility, and security features. Team members can upload, download, and access text or media files on any device with an internet connection. Plus, it's easy to edit documents, search for files, and stay organized in one place. This makes it a great tool for remote, hybrid, and in-office teams.
- Dropbox. Dropbox is a leading file-sharing system as it allows teams to access files on secure servers. It offers features like file storage, file sharing, offline access, file recovery, link-sharing for access, internal chat, and automatic organization. Teams of all sizes use it, and it’s particularly useful for large-size files.
- OneDrive. OneDrive, which is used by 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies, is another popular tool for file storage and sharing. Teams can easily share documents and photos and collaborate in real time on Microsoft 365 apps. OneDrive is accessible on any device and has features like file storage, document scanning, security controls, and file recovery.
Video and conferencing
Video and conferencing tools allow people to host meetings, conferences, and calls over the internet in real time. These tools allow for face-to-face meetings in remote and hybrid-work environments.
- Zoom. Suitable for all business sizes, Zoom is one of the most-used and top-rated video conferencing tools on the market. It allows users to communicate with each other using video and audio. Some other features include scheduling meetings, screen sharing, internal chat, breakout rooms, virtual backgrounds, and more.
- Google Meet. This free video conferencing tool is great for teams that already have a Google account. The platform offers features like whiteboards, breakout rooms, polls, screen sharing, and more. Users can also schedule meetings in Gmail or calendars and collaborate in real time.
- Loom. This video platform is great for businesses that want to create pre-recorded videos and share them with others via a link. It’s an asynchronous video platform that makes it easy to record, edit, and share video content. The business plan offers transcriptions and closed captions, filler word removal, custom branding, and engagement insights.
Improve your internal communication with Textline
If you need a secure texting tool to send important updates company-wide, coordinate field teams, have quick one-on-one conversations with employees without relying on Internet access, Texline is your tool to go.
Try Textline for free and see first-hand the positive impact of good team communication.
