I think serving up content on a corporate intranet is a little like serving dinner. You have to balance the nutritious with the delicious—the stuff readers need to know about with what they want to read about.
Are they eating your words?
After poring over analytical data over the years, I’ve learned that knowing what your readers gravitate toward helps inform how you present content that might be “drier” but important to know.
You have the lighter stuff (aka “fluff”)
On an intranet, this equates to the content that’s not necessarily life or death but needs to be posted. Think: the changes to the cafeteria’s hours, the open house over in the XYZ department, the reminder that your W-2 forms are on their way.
Not many readers pay attention to the fluff, until it’s absent from your intranet. Then they wonder why you didn’t tell them about that certification course or professional conference four months away.
There’s nothing wrong with publishing this type of information as long as you have a way to “weight” it differently than the more strategic content so it doesn’t muck up the real estate on your intranet so badly that the two compete. By placing less emphasis on these items, you’re helping direct your employees’ eyes to the bigger stuff.
Then there are the veggies of content
These are the more important things your employees need to know, need to engage in to help support your company’s goals. For instance, it might be telling how your company performed last quarter, your company’s five-year plan or its new strategies moving forward.
We know we should consume this content, but doing so is about as much fun as chewing on an old turnip. This kind of content may contain good information, but it can go too long and too dry in a hurry and probably is seasoned with a bit of (sometimes too much) corporate jargon.
And, of course, the dessert
This is just an irresistible piece of decadence. These are the nuggets that your readers can wrap their heads around, can relate to. Inspirational stories of their awesome co-workers, engaged teams, community outreach and the like. This is where they essentially spend a great deal of their time because it’s content that tugs at their emotions, making them feel proud or happy.
So how do you make chocolate cake from an old turnip?
Sitting in a few employee focus groups a few year ago to get feedback on a corporate magazine we were publishing, I heard it but wasn’t surprised. When asked what type of magazines they read in their leisure, these folks didn’t volunteer Newsweek, Cosmo or National Geographic. They most often mentioned People—known for its short stories written about celebrities, inspirational “regular” people—and the Kardashians.
When asked what parts of the company magazine they enjoyed most, it wasn’t the longer stories of industry news or the items defining corporate strategy. It was the people. One woman remarked, “I just flip through and see if there are any employee names I recognize. And, if I do, I stop and read it.”
Intranet analytics data supported that for digital content. For instance, we had far better readership and engagement on a regular feature we ran on the intranet showcasing a different job each month and personal stories from some of those who performed that job than we got on quarterly performance metrics stories.
So what’s the solution to giving readers what they crave while feeding them what they need to know?
Understand what they’re reading: Your data should show you where they’re gravitating. A side-by-side comparison of these content types should give you a good idea of what’s working and what’s not.
- Rethink how you tell your story. Are you offering a new service to your customers that’s pretty amazing? Don’t just tell readers about the service. Tell them about the customer—how he or she is personally affected, how it’s changed lives. That old adage about everyone having a story is true. Everyone does. You just have to be deliberate about telling the story of authentic customer experience. Also, think about telling it in video instead of text, which can be more seductive to audiences.
- Skip the jargon, please. Sometimes corporate-speak is another way of saying, “I really don’t know how to articulate this, so I’m going to throw in some $5 words to make it sound like I do.” Readers just want to know, in plain language, what your company is doing, what it is planning. Get to your point, use examples, make it meaningful and something they can relate to.
- Headlines are everything. Keep them short, to the point, interesting. We’re inundated with information all day long. Scanning is our survival mechanism. If your headline doesn’t stand out, your content becomes that tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it.
- Get their feedback in real time. One of the best things you can do with an intranet is to allow “liking” and commenting on news items. It not only promotes interaction, it gives you great information on how employees are engaging with your content, rather than just skimming it.
- Numbers don’t lie. Keep measuring, whether that means analytics or reader feedback. Sometimes, you have to try a combination of things to get your readers’ attention. And, while it takes a while to figure out which combination(s) work, your data will help with that, as will focus groups.
Shelby Nicolaus-Dunski is an experienced intranet editor, storyteller and passionate hunter of content that really kills it.
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