Week 1
The week has started off well and continued to get better, the first few days of my #chatterchallenge consisted of Housekeeping; updating my notifications, reviewing who I was following and most important of all making sure the team were following me!
Profiling!
My first day of the challenge I updated my Chatter profile by adding a picture, including a small blurb in About Me and putting in my contact details.
Topics I use Most
If you use # in your chatter posts they will appear in Topics I use Most. Mine of course is #chatterchallenge! By clicking this hyperlink your chatter posts will show all chatter relating to that topic!

About Me
Hyperlinks can be added to your 'About Me' profile, in this instance I added a link to our Company Blog The Chatter Challenge. This way, anyone new to the company can instantly see more information, you may want to add your Linkedin profile or a link to an important document.

Groups
As I needed to communicate privately, I was able to create Private Groups, in particular for Human Resources, The Management Team and the Finance Department.
Important Documents
By clicking on the pencil within a group (circled below), hyperlinks can be added to important documents, in the HR Group I've added in hyperlinks to the Employee Handbook, Health and Safety Manual and the Expenses template.

Private Messages
Chatter gives you the option to send Private Messages to other Chatter users in your orgnisation, you can send private messages to anyone, they don't have to be following you or be a member of any groups you belong to. It's nice and simple to send a private message (see the image below). Private messages can't be attached to a record, I kept my messages to team members quite simple and to the point.

Recommendations Tab
This is a great way to discover information I didn't previously know, such as marketing campaigns, projects, important sales deals or interesting industry related discussions! Using the “Recommendations” on the right hand side of the Chatter tab, lead me to a new level of discovery.
Selected Recommendations
Not interested in the record selected by Recommendations, no problem! Just simply hover over the record and remove it by clicking the x.

Week 2
Week 2 and this #chatterchallenge fantastic! I've been able to review and comment to my hearts content, I've gone mobile with the Chatter App, allowing me to still keep in contact with the team while on the move and I've created a Poll, which I'll review at the end of the #chatterchallenge.
@Mention
One the Consultants completed a fantastic job, and to ensure they saw my Chatter post, I @mention them! This created a conversation between the consultants - and generated collaboration and problem solving in the team!
Messages
@mention a colleague in a contact's chatter feed to alert them to a phone call - no need for scribbled post-it notes or emails!

Document Sharing
I had a large Finance Report which I needed to share with the team, just one simple upload and all my comments and reviews are now in one place!
Documents v Links
You don't have to upload a document, for example we often use Google Documents, so you can also share the google document link. Below you can see Claire has shared a link doc with me.

Ground Rules
Within SolX it’s acceptable to post about subjects that are not strictly work related – a new baby for example. We take the view that the pictures would be circulated by email anyway. In other organisations Chatter is the preserve of work subjects only. Both policies are fine – providing you let employees know where they stand.
Poll it!
We are considering updating our SOW document, and on Day 9 I created a Poll! It was very simple to create, at the end of the #chatterchallenge I’ll review the results! Some of the team have already voted - this is a great system for a busy team to use.
Group Polls
Remember if you post a poll in a private group, only the members of that group can vote.

The Chatter App
I’m out of the office today, but not to worry, I’ve updated my Chatter App and I’m ready to go! I was able to keep in touch with the team and not miss any updates to Opportunities and Campaigns I follow.
Here's a demo video on the Chatter App https://youtu.be/bxQWi2rVE7M
Week 3
I was out of the office last week, but not to worry, I updated my Chatter App and was able to keep in touch with the team at the touch of a button.
I’m #Trending
It’s time to #trend! I Started a trend by adding a #Topic to my post, frequently used topics become trends. Topics are similar to hashtags used in other social networking sites, create a topic by typing a hash sign and a word, for example, #automation or #finance
Searching for #trends
You are also able to search for #trends in the main search field on salesforce, very handy function!

Whats Trendy?
On your profile, there is a handy little list which shows the Topics that you ust most, here's what I've been trending all week!

Follow a Campaign
Marketing created a new Campaign “Marketing Automation and Lead Generation” which I was interested in keeping tabs on, I just followed it through Chatter...easy!
Customer Groups
I was able to keep my Customer group informed of any relevant changes in the campaign as they happen in real time. Marketing have also added a flyer for this Event, which I posted this in the Customer Group. Customers instantly liked the event and signed up!
Presentation Sharing
I uploaded the ISO Powerpoint Presentation to share with the team. Fantastic result, after uploading the Presentation, @GarySmith who was at a Customer site, was able to show the presentation immediately to customer! To follow up, Marketing noticed and posted some corresponding documents Think I’ll follow that customer opportunity, it looks promising.
Follow that Document!
You can follow documents as well as people, just like I have with the ISO presentation.

Week 4
This is my last week of the #chatterchallenge and I loved it! I can report now that I’ll never be going back to internal Email, the #chatterchallenge will continue!
Collaboration!
A document was posted on Chatter, I liked it and left my comments. My comment then started an in-house discussion amongst the consultants, regarding a piece of work. This kind of collaboration is fantastic. As I had bookmarked this discussion, I was able to quickly refer back to it, I then @mentioned Marketing into the discussion as they’ll find the information useful for the next Newsletter!
Campaign Review
I checked on the Campaign “Marketing Automation”, which now has 12 new contacts added to it, I was able to see how many of these were my existing customers, I recommended the team follow the campaign.
Updating Campaign Feed tracking
This was very simple, just a few clicks and I was able to choose which fields I'd like to be notified about!

Chatter Notifications
Because I had updated by Feed tracking, I was able to see the description of the campaign had been updated, this was excellent news, the more information the better, I passed this onto my customers via the Chatter group.

Customer Groups
Customers Groups take you to a whole new level of Customer Service! When a was question about Charts and Dashboards was posted in the Customer Chatter Group, I was able to respond and post a link to our Blog: 10 Charts on a Salesforce.com Dashboard. I also followed the Sales Teams Dashboards to keep me up to date with their progress. From my simple post five customers have liked the Blog post in the chatter and two of those customers are now following the SolX Blog!
Poll Results
Polls are a great way for a busy team to vote, with just a simple click! The poll I created in Week 2 is now up for review, looks like majority of the team want an update, I made the changes and updated the document in Content and posted a chatter. So Easy!

This has been a very successful #chatterchallenge, and a challenge I'm thrilled I accepted! I won’t be turning back now! Follow us at www.garysmithpartnership.com/blog
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.