Virgin Atlantic flies to Workplace, another win for the social network

Dive Brief:

After about two months of using Workplace by Facebook, more than 70% of Virgin Atlantic's 10,000 employees have adopted the communication platform, reports ComputerWorld.
Of those employees, 65% are using the platform weekly, which represents a "very impressive" adoption rate, according to the report. Virgin Atlantic used Microsoft's Yammer before Workplace but lamented a "poor" level of adoption.
Approximately half of airline employees are cabin or cockpit crew members, and the goal of the implementation was to elevate real-time communication among Virgin's various operations, which resulted in "groups." One group is even designated for widely recognizing employees and their work, which "opened up visibility of the range of the company," according to Craig Kreeger, CEO of Virgin Atlantic.

Dive Insight:

The social draw that Workplace by Facebook was founded on has an appeal that some other communication platforms lack. Its familiarity to employees' personal lives is one competitors try to mimic.

Though the communication platform was launched about a year ago, its list of customers is not only growing but already impressive. Workplace partnered with Walmart last month, launching the platform to Walmart's 2.2 million employees. Among the other 30,000 organizations that use Workplace are Starbucks, Delta and Campbell's.

The movement toward social media-based communication is also inspiring more mobility in the workplace. Of the 7,000 Virgin employees using the platform, 42% access it from a mobile device, according to the report. This indicates greater need to supply employees with mobile devices. But Virgin's cabin crews already use iPads, giving Apple another entryway into the enterprise market.

Collaborative capabilities enable companies to establish an "enterprise community," which both Slack and Microsoft are trying to expand with tools for external company communication. The communication platform market is not slowing down. Though Microsoft is a dominant force in the market, Workplace is making its place known.