Maximizing Intranet Content: Strategies, Types, and Ideas for Better Engagement

In this post, we’ll explore how to build effective intranet content, ensure it’s easy to find, and continuously improve it to maximize its impact.

Intranet content refers to all the information, resources, tools, and media that employees access via the intranet. This includes corporate intranet content, such as company policies, news articles, handbooks, project updates, blog posts, and other information. The key is to ensure this content is easy to access, relevant, and aligned with organizational goals to help employees perform their best work. But intranet content doesn’t have to be dry or corporate!

Here are some examples of content that can broaden the spectrum of what intranet content can be:

“Employee of the Month” Highlights: Celebrate accomplishments with a fun feature showcasing the employee of the month. Add quirky trivia or behind-the-scenes facts about them—like their favorite pizza topping or secret talent!

Weekly Polls: Engage employees with light-hearted weekly polls on topics like "Best Office Snack," "Dream Vacation Spot," or "Favorite Work-from-Home Outfit." These are great ways to encourage interaction and get to know your colleagues better.

Interactive Quizzes: Design quizzes with a lighter theme, such as “Which Office Superhero Are You?” or “What’s Your Work Personality?” These quizzes can be entertaining and give employees a chance to discover more about each other in a fun way.

Company Flashbacks: Share funny or nostalgic throwback photos from the company’s history, such as “Our Early Bikes” or “Our First Office in Copenhagen.” It’s a fun way to remind employees of how far the company has come!

These pieces of intranet content not only keep employees informed but also help build a more connected and engaging workplace culture. So, make sure your intranet isn’t just a place for storing company information—it should be a tool for strengthening culture and employee relationships. 

Image: Example content from a start page including employee of the month.

Creating an intranet that employees actually want to use starts with more than just publishing news updates or uploading policy documents. A strong intranet content strategy ensures relevance, engagement, and long-term value. It outlines what content is needed, how it should be created, how often it should be updated, and where it should appear within the digital workplace.

Here are the core components of a successful intranet content strategy:

Audience Segmentation: Tailor content to meet the needs of specific roles, departments, or teams within the organization. By understanding your audience, you can deliver relevant, targeted content that resonates with each group.

Content Lifecycle Management: Ensure intranet content is regularly reviewed, updated, and archived. This helps keep the content fresh, useful, and aligned with the organization’s current goals and needs.

Governance: Assign content ownership to ensure it is properly managed and updated on a regular basis. Implement review cycles to ensure the content stays current and accurate.

Consistency: Maintain a consistent tone, style, and format across all intranet content. This enhances clarity, builds trust, and ensures that employees can easily navigate and understand the content.

Channel Strategy: A channel strategy helps determine where content should be published. For example, where should company news be shared? What is the best channel for CEO posts? When should internal newsletters, digital signage, or articles on the intranet homepage be used? Defining these channels will help deliver the right content through the right medium to maximize its impact.

Learn more: Check out the strong Communication Governance features of Omnia here.

Writing for the web is different from traditional writing because people consume online content differently. They tend to scan rather than read, search for key takeaways, and often multitask while browsing. Whether you're creating content for a public website or an intranet website, your goal is to ensure clarity, readability, and engagement.

Here's our top-5 advice for producing quality intranet content:

Most employees don’t read intranet content word for word. Instead, they scan pages for key details. Research shows that 79% of people skim digital content, looking for bolded keywords, headings, and bullet points. To keep intranet content effective:

✔ Write short paragraphs (two to three sentences max).

✔ Use plain language—avoid jargon and overly complex terms.

✔ Get straight to the point—employees don’t have time for fluff.

✔ Structure key takeaways at the beginning of sections.

Employees use the intranet to quickly locate resources, policies, or instructions. Dense blocks of text slow them down. Structuring intranet content with headings, lists, and white space improves readability. Best practices include:

✔ Use clear, descriptive headings so employees instantly know what a section is about.

✔ Break complex information into bullet points or numbered steps for easy reading.

✔ Keep section titles direct and search-friendly (e.g., How to Request Time Off instead of Understanding the Employee Leave Process).

Many employees access intranet content from mobile devices—especially remote workers, frontline staff, or field teams. If content is difficult to read on a small screen, employees won’t engage with it. To improve mobile-friendliness:

✔ Write short, clear sentences. Use paragraph spacing to avoid walls of text.

✔ Make sure buttons and links are easy to tap.

✔ Test intranet content on different screen sizes to ensure readability.

Corporate jargon confuses and frustrates employees. Intranet content should be simple, direct, and easy to understand. Best practices:

✔ Use common, everyday words instead of technical or bureaucratic terms.

✔ Write in an active voice (e.g., "Submit your request by Friday" instead of "Requests should be submitted by Friday").

✔ Speak directly to employees using “you” instead of third-person references.

Employees visit the intranet to complete tasks—whether it’s submitting a request, finding a document, or learning about a policy. If intranet content doesn’t provide clear next steps, users will get frustrated. To make content actionable:

✔ Use clear call-to-actions (CTAs) like "Click here to submit your request" or "Download the policy now."

✔ Ensure instructions are direct and step-by-step.

✔ Anticipate employee questions and provide answers up front.

When planning and outlining content for your intranet, you will probably list information pages with content that does not change that often, dynamic content as news articles often presented in personalized feeds, interactive content as polls and forms, and media content as images, videos or even podcasts. But as the examples above shows, the intranet can also hold content that drive employee engagement as employee of the month, quizzes, or history flashbacks.

The most common types of content on intranets include:

✔ Company news, events, updates, and achievements.

✔ About our organization, organization charts, locations, values.

✔ Policies and procedures, processes, handbooks, step-by-step guides and similar.

✔ HR-related resources as onboarding and learning resources, recognition programs, and feedback channels.

✔ Team collaboration with workspaces for departments, offices, networks, and projects to share files, posts, tasks, and calendar events.

✔ Knowledge sharing and social communities, conversations, employee stories, and blogs.

Besides the above bullets, we would like to sugges some other content ideas to enhance engagement:

Encourage employees to contribute their own content—whether through blogs, knowledge sharing, or even internal webinars. An idea here could be to create an internal blog space for employees to share insights or experiences related to their roles or personal development. This can help foster a sense of ownership and community.

Build interactive spaces where employees can collaborate, share feedback, and communicate. This could include forums, discussion boards, or even virtual coffee chat rooms. An idea that we have seen successful in several organizations is to set up a “kudos” page where employees can recognize their peers for accomplishments or milestones.

Image: Example of a praise post.

A knowledge base or self-service hub is incredibly useful for employees to find answers to frequently asked questions or troubleshoot issues on their own. Our suggestion is to keep the knowledge base updated and categorized based on user needs—include troubleshooting steps, product manuals, and FAQs.

Another idea could be to setup a list of posts that refers to something that happened on a certain date, as “14 years ago we opened our first office in Canada” or “5 years ago we launched the legendary MTB-40 model”. These posts can then be surfaced on the start page for the relevant date only – telling a story about the organization piece by piece.

Image: Example content on start page including a 'calendar-based' post.

Make learning and professional development part of your intranet content. Include training materials, e-learning modules, micro-courses, or webinars that employees can access anytime. With Omnia, you can setup a Learning Center where employees can access relevant courses, certifications, and development opportunities tailored to their roles.

Learn more: Check out Omnia features for managing learning resources.

Personalize content so employees see the most relevant information based on their roles, interests, or preferences. Why not provide employees with customizable dashboards and content feeds based on their specific job functions or department? A personalized intranet experience leads to higher engagement.

Use intranet content to foster a sense of community and belonging within your organization. Highlight employee stories, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and company values. We have seen organizations create a “Culture Corner” with great success, where employees can read about company events, employee stories, and initiatives that showcase the organization's culture.

Use analytics to track which content gets the most engagement and which sections of the intranet are visited most frequently. This will help you identify what’s working and where to improve. Our suggestion is to regularly collect feedback from employees via surveys or polls about the intranet’s usefulness and which areas need more attention.

Image: Monitoring Content Usage in the Governance Hub

Ensure that the intranet content is mobile-optimized, especially if you have remote or field employees who need access on-the-go. Use responsive design so that intranet content adjusts to different screen sizes and remains user-friendly on both mobile and desktop devices. Setup a customized intranet mobile app to make sure employees can receive personalized push notifications.

Learn more: Check out Omnia's features for mobile and frontline support.

People often prefer engaging, visual content. Incorporate videos, infographics, and interactive elements to make the content more engaging and easier to digest. Create short video updates or tutorials instead of lengthy written content or use infographics to simplify complex processes or data. Publish video of the month on the start page.

Other intranet ideas that can help improve employee engagement include:

✔ Gamification: Add leaderboards, badges, or rewards to motivate employees to interact with intranet content.

✔ AI-Powered Recommendations: Use AI to suggest personalized content based on employee roles, interests, or activity.

✔ Social Features: Incorporate comment sections, likes, and discussions to foster employee interaction and community.

✔ Dynamic User Profiles: Ensure that user profiles are not just a card with contact details. Ensure that badges, courses, social posts and more can be reflected in the profile.

✔ Prioritize Findability:  Ensure that all content have descriptive titles, relevant descriptions, and metadata that can help end-users when searching for content.

Building and maintaining an effective intranet content strategy is essential for maximizing employee engagement, productivity, and collaboration. By carefully organizing corporate intranet content—from news updates to training resources—and ensuring it’s aligned with company goals, your intranet can become an invaluable tool for your organization. Use a variety of intranet content types, such as interactive quizzes, employee stories, and personalized content, to keep the experience engaging and relevant. Intranet ideas like gamification, AI-powered recommendations, and mobile optimization can drive participation and create a sense of community.

By focusing on personalization, clear navigation, and ongoing content updates, you’ll ensure that your intranet stays fresh and valuable. Don’t forget to track content engagement using analytics to continuously improve your intranet’s effectiveness. Ultimately, with the right strategy and execution, your intranet will not only be a place for storing information but a central hub that strengthens company culture, connects employees, and drives business success.

Ready to make your intranet a more engaging and valuable tool? Start by evaluating your content strategy today and make sure it’s aligned with your organization’s goals. If you’re looking for expert guidance or tools to optimize your intranet, reach out to us for a free 30-minute consultation to see how we can help you build a stronger, more connected workplace.