The tricks to boost engagement on your intranet

Since I started working with Sitevision in general, and with intranets in particular, many years ago, both the platform and the applications have advanced sevenfold. Today, there are an incredible number of useful modules built in, and only the imagination sets the limits for what kind of modules can be developed.

However, one fundamental challenge that has always existed remains: how do we get users to actually log in to the intranet and access all the great content that has been created? As a content producer and commissioner – whether you're a developer, editor or digital strategist, for example – you've probably faced the same challenge. No matter how informative your content is, no matter how well designed your intranet is, and no matter how clever the integrations and features you build in, your intranet won't be the hub you hoped it would be if users don't actually log in and absorb the information.

Carrot or stick?

Over the years, organisations have tried both carrots and sticks to encourage engagement on the intranet. For example, we have seen the carrot in the form of gamification and trying to make the use of the intranet more entertaining and engaging by implementing game mechanisms and challenges. At the other end of the scale, we have seen the stick by, for example, deciding that users should only be able to report computer errors via a form on the intranet, or by ensuring that the link to colleagues' vacation planning is only available on the intranet.

This usually works well to create awareness of the intranet and to make it a natural tool in everyday work, but there is still more to do. Neither the stick nor the carrot is a given success factor when it comes to reaching out with information to users who rarely or never log in. So how can you communicate with those users who, for whatever reason, are not active on the intranet? One effective solution to generate traffic and increase engagement on the intranet can be targeted and personalised newsletters.

Personalised newsletters

An example of this comes from a client who has chosen to gather all internal communication on the intranet and where users are spread geographically or organisationally (for example, in different subsidiaries or different business areas). On this intranet, both company-wide news and local news for offices, regions and departments are created. To catch users who for some reason missed the news when it was created, a consolidated email is sent out at regular intervals (configurable in Sitevision). Each user in the system receives their own personal newsletter where only relevant information is summarised. Has there been any news for your department since the last newsletter? If so, the e-mail contains a section for this with links to the intranet that pushes the news with image, headline and preamble from the articles in Sitevision. Has there also been news for the user's office? Then these are also included. Is there also company-wide news aimed at all employees? Yes, these will also be included in the newsletter. Some offices will have more diligent editors than others and the amount of news can therefore vary between different offices and departments. For some users, this may mean that they only receive a summary of the weekly or monthly news from headquarters. For other users, it may mean that they also receive a summary for their department, office, business area, country or wherever content has been created.

Helping the infrequent user

This kind of personalisation helps the infrequent user, who for some reason hasn't logged in to the intranet, to still get a regular summary of what has happened recently. By containing only headlines and links, relevant to each individual's role or geographical location, the newsletter automatically becomes more attractive and generates more clicks and traffic to the intranet – while increasing visibility and awareness of the intranet's value.

The regular Sitevision user has probably already had time to object "but what about Sitevision's subscription features?" and of course it also has its rightful place in informing users about updates. However, in my experience as a developer and solution architect, it is best suited to individual pages and articles rather than tailored summaries of what has happened over a period of time.

Notifications from the intranet in other channels

Another example can be found closer to home: at Webstep, we recently introduced a new intranet ourselves (in Sitevision, of course!) and thought about how to integrate the managers' newsletters in a smart way. Before Webstep's intranet was developed, employees in each office received an email in which each manager summarised what had happened that week through a local newsletter. Some managers wrote the newsletter in their email client, others created the newsletter as a PDF, and others used mass mailing systems. At the end of each month, our CEO wrote a similar summary, but in a monthly letter sent to all employees.

When we introduced the new intranet, it was obvious that the weekly and monthly newsletters would no longer be handled differently depending on who was the author, but from now on the newsletters would be created as articles in Sitevision. The only question was how we would get users to understand when there were new mailings?

At Webstep, we have a well-established culture of communicating through Slack – whether it's for work-related issues, social discussions or just birthday greetings. Using Slack to notify about relevant events on the intranet was therefore natural. Our new solution means that newsletters are created in archives linked to each office and that Sitevision, as soon as a newsletter is published, automatically sends out Slack messages to the right Slack channel. If a newsletter is published for the Uppsala office, those who follow the Uppsala channel in Slack will receive a notification.