#Microsoft365 #Office365 #SharePoint – You’ve written that article, now without using click-bait tactics, how do you get your users’ attention? In my previous post I showed you how to create beautiful news articles on the new modern SharePoint Sites and there’s multiple options for promoting these articles to your users. Let me show you.

For previous posts in my #Microsoft365Challenge go to the index page.

DISCLAIMER:  I WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT OFFICE / MICROSOFT 365. CONTENT IS ACCURATE AT TIME OF PUBLICATION, HOWEVER UPDATES AND NEW ADDITIONS HAPPEN DAILY WHICH COULD CHANGE THE ACCURACY OR RELEVANCE. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN USING MY BLOGS AS GUIDELINES.

Related posts: 

News

You can keep your team in the loop as well as engage them with important or interesting stories by using the News feature on your page or site. You can quickly create eye-catching posts like announcements, people news, status updates, and more that can include graphics and rich formatting. Use the News web part on a page.

It’s easy to write an article, to get people to read it, now that’s a whole different story. I’ve been building Intranets for a looooonnnngggg time and the challenge has always been that no matter how pretty you make that thing, people will not navigate there if it doesn’t have business critical apps on or form part of their every day work.

For me the SharePoint mobile App has definitely changed a lot of that. Yes, you still get users who say “I’m not gonna use my personal phone for work stuff.” Look at those people get replaced by robots soon. Yeah, I figure that was a bit harsh, but let’s face it. The world has changed, tech has changed. Things are faster, more intense – we have to adapt and evolve.

So let’s take a look at the different options for making your users’ aware of a news article:

Send by email:

When a news page has been created – you can select to send that page via email.

  1. Click on Send by email
  2. Enter the address (or groups? need to check that one)
  3. Add a message

Here’s the email it will send. It gives a thumbnail (the banner you used), as well as a synopsis (from the text on the page). Users still have to click to open the article – but this is already a WHOLE LOT BETTER than a staff announcement as a PDF attachment on a mail:

Promote:

  1. Click on Promote
  2. Add the page to your navigation
  3. Check whether the page has been published to News
  4. Email the page
  5. Get the link

SharePoint Mobile App:

The mobile app displays the latest article on the Intranet landing page. Click on News button in the taskbar and see all the latest news articles.

 

The news pages are beautifully responsive and easy to read on your mobile device:

Updates coming soon:

See below article on:  Refine your message and increase your reach with SharePoint communication sites 

Email a news digest – Increase the reach of and combine select news articles into one consolidated email update. From the full list of news articles, select specific news items, click Send news digest to send an email to a group or individuals with clean previews and links to the full news articles.

Start with a copy of this page – Don’t start from blank! If you have a series of pages you’ve created with a similar layout and design, you can now go to an existing page and use it as a quick start to create a whole new page – but with a head start. From an existing page, click New and then select Start with a copy of this page. The service will create the new page and you simply jump into updating with new text, images and content updates, with layout, design and common text already in place.

Page animation – To keep your reader, you must delight your user. You will do this with good content and messaging and we will help with beautiful, new page animations using parallax views that keep the eye engaged as readers scroll the page. It’s the little things, and it’s delightful.

Mobile notifications for news articles – when an important, relevant news article is posted by someone in your close sphere of work – derived from the intelligence of the Microsoft Graph, you will receive a notification on your mobile device, from SharePoint within your device’s notification tray. When you click on the notification, you are taken directly into the SharePoint mobile app to view the news article. Don’t go hunting for the good news, good news will find you.

Purpose of this blog challenge:  I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found here. I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available.  A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.