How can you effectively use internal communication to share company news?

Start by establishing clear communication objectives and defining what you aim to achieve through the sharing of company news. Develop a structured communication plan that includes the who, what, when, where, and how of your messaging. Use a mix of communication channels, such as email, intranet, meetings, and digital platforms, to reach diverse employee preferences. Tailor your messages to be concise, relevant, and engaging to maintain interest and comprehension. Implement a regular cadence for sharing company news, whether it's weekly newsletters, monthly town hall meetings, or real-time updates during critical events. Encourage feedback and two-way communication to ensure employees feel heard and can ask questions.

Get to know your audience by doing your research from start and to avoid assumption. Whether you have a diverse audience or not, you want to ensure all your internal communication efforts are tailored. A good idea is to conduct individual interviews with a wide representation of employees. Create a set of questions that is divided into general questions and tailored questions to the specific roles or geographic position if needed. Compile the answers into insights which you can use for your internal communication work and as motivation for decisions.

'Know your audience' is very important factor to start off on sharing company related news to internal stakeholders. Inside an organization, we have diverse audience from board of directors to new joiners at entry level and from technical to financial and creative background. So it is advisable to first know your target audience completely before drafting an internal content.

Additionally, consider key opinion leaders in the organization as another channel for communication. These are reputable individuals and highly regarded by employees. They may be leaders or just genuinely good and trusted voices who promote a positive culture in the organisation. Perhaps they can be your ambassadors to carry the message to colleagues. Ensure you provide them with succinct scripts/talking points on your message.

Use the inverted pyramid approach, which emphasizes the importance of stacking the most important information at the beginning of a message with the understanding that the audience can stop reading at any point. Put the must-know information right at the top with the less important information further down. Getting the information people need should be easy, not a scavenger hunt.

A proved effort is to engage employees and create ambassadors by implementing focus groups. These groups can be divided into different topics such as cross-departmental, department, roles or other needs. The groups will feel more involved and can help you spread messages throughout the organization. They can become great ambassadors and ensure your efforts are relevant when it comes to messaging, channels and that it fulfills their needs.

Maintain a frequency - curate your communication to keep sending snippets of useful informtaion so your audience expects, and looks forward to, your news coming in every once so often