How You Can Drive Engagement Within Your Modern Intranet

Welcome to the 12th edition of the MangoScoop LinkedIn Newsletter!

MangoScoop?is the fastest-growing newsletter focused on improving employee experience in the digital workplace.

In this newsletter, we'll share some ideas on how you can improve employee engagement within your modern intranet.

Let's dive into this week's agenda:

• How To Write Communications Your Employees Will Actually Read
• How To Drive Engagement With Polls And Surveys
• 5 Company Newsletter Ideas To Boost Engagement

How To Write Communications Your Employees Will Actually Read

At many companies, internal communicators face an uphill battle. These tips will help you win people’s trust over time by writing company communications that are engaging and relevant.

Depending on your industry, a good chunk of your workforce likely takes anything from “corporate” with a grain of salt. Some ignore it entirely.

Most of these communications?were written by people totally out of touch with the workers’ needs. Furthermore, they provided those workers with very little value. They were more likely to offer blockers or waste their time than to help them do their jobs.

Through this lens, it is unsurprising that they don’t want to read your emails. Would?you?read your emails?

To fix this, you have to do a better job of keeping things simple, direct, and relevant. Hopefully, you have access to a communication platform that allows you to create and distribute interactive, engaging content.

1.?Keep it short and use visuals

You already know this, but it bears repeating.

If you write a novel, no one’s going to read it – this refers to your message's?subject lines, as well. Write in chunks with titles that capture the key points, separated by images. This maps well to how the human brain digests information.

Some situations, though, require writing company communications with a deeper level of detail about a topic. A good solution is to capture the main point in a short blurb and link out to the long version.

This not only keeps your message brief but does a neat little psychology trick that many salespeople use. You get someone to say yes to a small, low-commitment question. The dopamine hit of giving another person a positive social cue primes them to say yes to more things, and they feel like they’re the one in control.

2.?Provide value

In any business relationship, there’s a mix of items for which each party relies on the other. Hopefully, your audience needs things from you about as often as you need things from them.

If that’s the case, you can sandwich things you want them to know between things they want to know from you. If you do this well, people will read your messages without much prodding.

3.?Stay ahead of their questions

Every internal communicator knows the pain of getting 500 replies to a mass email asking the same question.

Over time, you get to know your audience and can make sure your content answers the kinds of questions they normally ask.

To get to this knowledge faster, show the communications you’re going to send out to a couple of people from your audience. Ask them if it makes sense and if they have any follow-up questions.

With a good representative sample, this will fast-track you towards tailoring your messaging to your audience.

Anything you can do to answer people’s questions before they have a chance to ask them is worth it. Even if they still ask because they didn’t read your message all the way through, you have somewhere to point them.

4. Segment and target as much as possible

The key to successfully writing company communications is to make every message a person receives feel directly relevant to them. If you’re blasting company news to everyone with the same message, people will ignore you over time.

With every single communication that you send, you need to consider your audience carefully. Answer these two questions ruthlessly:

1. Does everyone in this group actually need to receive this message?
2. Is there any way I can segment this group further?

The more people you can eliminate from any given message, the better. The more you can break down your audience and make your message hyper-relevant, the more likely you are to build affinity and trust.

5. Choose your topics wisely, don’t over-communicate

This ties into the above, but it’s worth reiterating.

If you email me twice a day and my job doesn’t depend on reading your emails, you can bet that I won’t read them. Less is more, especially when there isn’t a two-way flow of requests between you and your audience.

You need to be judicious with your communications. View every communication you write through the lens of a merciless editor:

• Do you really need to send an email about this?
• Do you really need to cover all these topics in this much detail?
• Does this really need to go to all these people?

If you don’t have good answers to these questions, go back to the drawing board.

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How To Drive Engagement With Polls & Surveys

Two ways you can?boost employee engagement?within your organization are through?polls?and?surveys.?

Polls & surveys are both very useful tools for gathering information and feedback from a group of people. However, some differences between them may make one more appropriate than the other, depending on the situation.

Let's look at some of these differences and provide some examples that you can use to start driving higher levels of engagement across your workforce.

Polls

• Are generally used to gauge opinions or preferences on a specific topic quickly
• Are made up of only one question
• Typically have only a few response options
• Can be useful for getting a quick snapshot of how a group of people feel about a particular topic
• Can be conducted in real-time or over a short period of time, such as during a meeting or as part of a post.

Best Practice:?To boost engagement, share a “Poll of the Week/Month” at the start of each work week/month. Posting early in the week will give you a chance to collect the results and follow up with a summary.?

You can ask a question about the business/product/service or something social, fun, and timely.?

There are plenty of great ways you can keep people engaged and garner valuable feedback at the same time.

Poll Ideas:

• Are you excited for this year’s New Product Expo?
• Do you love McDonald’s Shamrock Shakes??
• Who do you think is going to win March Madness?
• Would you rather eat pizza or hamburgers for lunch?

Surveys

• Are more comprehensive and are designed to gather detailed information and feedback from a group of people
• Are typically more than just one question
• Can include a wider range of questions and response options
• Can be used to gather feedback on a variety of topics such as customer satisfaction, employee engagement or even market research
• Are often conducted over a period of days/weeks/months
• Have more in-depth results that can be analyzed to gain insights into the opinions and behaviors of the participants

Survey Ideas:

• Ask for feedback on employee benefits
• Get input on ways to improve monthly company meetings
• Get a pulse check on employee satisfaction
• Ask for feedback on?

Just like with polls, survey results can be assembled into a post and shared with additional thoughts and recognition for the participants.

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5 Company Newsletter Ideas For Engagement

#1 Provide Thrilling Updates

Have a huge company-wide success that you want to tell everyone about? Make a spot for this in your newsletter! Let your employees know how great the company is doing and keep them up-to-date with the latest news.?

Also, share any important, targeted announcements with monthly newsletters. These can track progress and communicate department adjustments to promote work improvements.

Being honest and up-to-date with your employees creates an authentic brand reputation that helps retain them. Additionally, company updates keep workers on the same page and lead to a more efficient, unified workplace.?

#2 Newsletter Themes

Connect with your employees by designing themed newsletters relating to a seasonal event! Building newsletters inspired by events and holidays can help raise spirit throughout your company.?

Creative newsletters keeps employees intrigued with the fresh designs each month and helps connect them with the company as well. More company newsletter ideas include showing support for local events, such as city sporting events. This fun way to engage employees cultivates an inclusive community that helps them unite with each other.

#3 Interactive Questionnaires

A fun way to connect with your employees is by asking them several fun questions relating to an ongoing event in the world. Employees can then answer and compare their opinions.

For example, one question may ask “what is your favorite holiday food?” during the time of a certain holiday. Another scenario could relate to a business decision, such as including a question on the marketing team newsletter like “what new platform should we advertise our product on?”?

Questions like these help create interactive discussions and bring employees closer together through sharing their opinions. Employees can additionally learn about the various cultures of their coworkers, better connecting them with one another.?

#4 Celebrate Employees

Let the whole company or certain teams know when someone made an impressive accomplishment or completed an important job contribution. Showcasing the talents of your employees makes those honored feel appreciated, while motivating workers to perform their best as well.

Shoutouts can also be done for what people have been accomplishing outside of work. This gives the company a chance to connect with its employees and show them that you care personally.

Additionally, save time creating the newsletter and make it more visually appealing by using templates. This helps you avoid the faux pas of an inconsistent and poorly designed newsletter that no one wants to read.?

#5 Easily Accessible News?

Use notifications to make sure that workers never miss an update and can view your newsletter instantly. Also, internal communication tools capable of mobile accessibility satisfy the needs of remote workers and those that prefer mobile alerts. Present your information using multiple medias to personalize your newsletters for each employee further.

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Thank you for reading this edition of the MangoScoop newsletter!

If you haven't seen it, check out our latest?whitepaper ?on the topic -?How An Employee SuperApp Can Transform Your Workplace.