Summary: 3 tips for effective information sharing on your intranet, from posting information to the Company News application to creating static HTML pages.
When starting out with a new intranet, many organizations want to know how they should set up their site in order to provide the most effective means of communicating information with their employees. For most organizations, the point of having an intranet, to begin with, is to make important information more accessible, as many employees have the need to “grab it and go” when it comes to information. So how can you ensure your information sharing is effective?
I wish I had a simple answer, but the truth is the most effective way to share information with your employees is based on many different factors, such as:
- Size of your organization
- Your company culture
- Type of information you wish to share
- Amount of information you wish to share
There are hundreds of features and applications within our out-of-the-box software to help share information with employees, including Document Management applications for housing your documents, Company Calendars for upcoming events, and a knowledgebase for finding FAQs on the fly.
For general company updates, however, here are our top 3 applications for information sharing on your intranet:
1) Company News
The general Company News application is the most popular way to share information with employees on your intranet. This application allows non-IT admins to post updates using our simple HTML editor tool. Add text, images, and even embed videos to make your news postings more engaging.
Features such as publish date and archive dates also allow you to automate when your news gets published and when it disappears from your site. In addition, you can set an advertised date to automatically display new news items right on your homepage.
Employees can subscribe to the news application to stay current on all the news updates, or the intranet admin can subscribe to employees on their behalf. Once they have subscribed to content, any time content is published to the Company News application, the user will receive an email notification, an intranet site notification, or both.
To encourage employee interaction, turn on comments and ratings on your company news posts. These can help to boost engagement on your company intranet.
2) Internal Blogs
Some organizations prefer to utilize blogs to post company information and updates. While the functionality is fairly similar to the Company News application, the layout is a bit more engaging in that the blog owner’s photo is featured right next to their post. You can also enable comments on blog posts which allows employees to discuss the topic or collaborate on ideas.
The blog application also gives you the ability to add a blog feed on your home page which automatically pulls out and features your latest blog post, along with the photo of the blog owner right next to the article heading on the home page.
This application allows you to have multiple different types of blogs, with many different posts per blog, and various different contributors.
3) Static HTML Pages
HTML pages allow you to post updates on the fly, such as company alerts that employees need to know about, and then advertise this content on your home page.
Some intranet admins prefer to utilize static HTML pages because that is what they have used in previous systems. This should be your last go-to for posting company updates, however, as you lose out on features in the previously mentioned applications such as publish dates, archive dates, alerts, and subscriptions.
Effective Information Sharing
Each one of these applications gives you the benefit of assigning content owners, setting up security permissions, and separating posted content into various categories of information. They are all therefore helpful in streamlining information to the employees within your organization.
Information posted to these applications is also easily found using your global site search on your company intranet, and therefore allows employees to find what they need quickly and easily.
We would love to hear how you share information on your company intranet – leave your comments below!
The Executive Guide
Executive engagement is crucial for your intranet’s success. Find out how to put the right tactics in play with our guide.
