How to promote content internally

Do you want to get more people reading, retaining and recommending your communications? I've pulled together a list of tips and techniques I've found useful, with some research to back them up. It is by no means exhaustive, but 10 feels like a good starting point for now. I encourage you to try at least two of these techniques when creating content in the following months. Let me know what results you get in the comments below, or if you have any other tips you've found useful.

Subject line

Your subject line on an email, or title to a blog or video, is the first encounter people will have with your content. If it's not written effectively, it can also be the last encounter as people delete or move past without taking notice. In a short space of words (no more than 10), it should draw in the audience and get them to click. How can you do that?

Ask a question, speak directly to your target audience, or intrigue them. 

Show reading time at the top

Sharing the amount of time it should take someone to read your piece instantly prepares them for a set amount of attention.

As humans we hate uncertainty, and will drift off if we encounter it, but if you set the expectation that you are only demanding 4 minutes of someone's attention right now, you're more likely to get it. This article gives some more information on the science involved, including evidence of a 13% drop in bounce rates for one blogger who added an estimated reading time to his longer form pieces.

Story in a sentence

An old rule of PR is to answer the following questions in the first sentence; what, who, when, where, how, why. It's a challenge of wordplay and editing out the non-essential, but it is highly effective.

Drop off rates for any online content below the fold (where you have to scroll down to view more) are really steep according to Nielsen research, so it pays to put your best stuff first. Distilling your story into one sentence immediately communicates the news, while enticing the reader to continue and find out more about the details below. A useful trick is to consider an inverse pyramid of content, going from 'need to know' at the top to 'nice to know' at the bottom.

Provide context

In a large organisation, people will happen upon your content with varying degrees of understanding of the subject matter. To make it easier for non-experts to get up to speed quickly, it's useful to include a brief contextual paragraph at the top. This can be as simple as two lines and a link off to other content which documents an earlier stage of the project. Format it in italics so that it doesn't draw the eye naturally.

Vary your font size

There is a standard font size for emails and web publishing platforms, but you don't need to stick to it. Increasing the font size of your article makes it far easier for people to take in your message quickly, and retain it going forward.

A research study on Wikipedia showed that people retained most information when font size was between 18 to 26. This is particularly relevant when dealing with pensions, as people’s eyesight tends to get worse as they get older. Making the font size bigger could have a significant impact on your engagement with an older demographic.

Hierarchy of information

On a similar note, use font size to denote the hierarchy of importance for your information. In other words, make the most important thing the largest.

A cautionary tale on this comes from the infamous Oscars ceremony where La La Land was wrongly announced as the winner of the Best Picture. The cards the presenters had to read out had 'Oscars' printed in large text (as if they would forget where they were) while the name of the movie and actor were underneath and much smaller. The presenter was handed the wrong card, and in a moment of uncertainty with the cameras rolling panicked and read out the name on the card, instead of seeking to clarify. It’s a great example of why the key information should always be prominent for your audience.

Break up the wall of text

One of the first goals of writing is to be read. Make it easy for people to scan your piece by breaking up the wall of text. You can draw attention to your key points through white space, headings, and using images with captions to encapsulate your point. A wonderful blog on Medium explains this point in a far better way than I could. 

Promote it in different channels

There are four typical ways that people prefer to process new information; Reading, Aural, Visual, Kinaesthetic.

Not everyone uses your preferred channel of communication, so only promoting your content there limits your overall audience. If you’ve created some new content you can try this yourself.

Copy the link and email it around to those who will find it useful, include the link in your email signature, take a 5 minute guest slot in a team meeting to talk it through with your team, or make up a poster and pin it by the printer around offices. It may feel like overkill, but remember the old advertising saying 'When you're sick of your message, that's when people start taking notice'.

Interlinking

Interlinking is like eating your vegetables as a child; it's no fun, but you know it's good for you. There is likely a wealth of information already available on the topic you're discussing.

It only takes 5 minutes to link back to previous content on the same topic or go back to old content and link forward to updates, and the payoff is handsome. It increases the longevity of a piece if you can see the progress over time, and helps to build knowledge more quickly for non-experts in that area.

It’s a wrap!

So now you've reached the end of your piece, how do you finish?

Depending on your angle, you may have a call to action or not. If you have a call to action you'll want to lay out in clear terms what you want people to do, and make it as simple as possible for them to do it. If you don't have a call to action, you can link off to related information for your audience. This doesn't just have to be internal either.

Below, I'm listing an incredibly useful framework you should look through for increasing engagement and encouraging people to take action.

EAST

A framework for instigating behaviour change developed by the Behavioural Insights Team and the UK Government. You should make any new behaviour Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely to make it more appealing for people to adopt. Much more information on the Behavioural Insights website.