Strategies to Improve Internal Communication—and Why a Modern Intranet Is Essential

In this blog post, you’ll learn nine proven modern intranet communication strategies to improve intranet effectiveness—supporting better transparency, stronger culture, and measurable business results.

If you want to learn more, download our Improving Internal Communication with a Modern Intranet guide. It’s packed with 20+ best practices and examples you can start using today.

Employees expect transparency and authenticity from their employer. Organizations want to strengthen culture, boost engagement, and align teams behind common goals. Both sides have a lot to gain from better communication—but the reality of today’s workplace makes it harder to achieve.

Distributed teams, rapid organizational change, multiple channels, and information overload create noise that drowns out important messages. At the same time, leaders expect communication teams to show measurable business value—such as higher retention, improved productivity, and a better employee experience.

The solution? A structured, strategic approach backed by a modern intranet that acts as the single source of truth, delivers targeted updates, and enables two-way engagement. The importance of a Modern intranet for internal communication should not be underestimated.

Research consistently shows that effective internal communication increases alignment, builds trust, enhances productivity, and supports business outcomes. But success doesn’t happen by accident—it requires a clear strategy, the right tools, and ongoing measurement.

Here are nine corporate communication strategies that will help you design and develop your modern intranet. 

Start by defining clear goals for your internal communication—whether it’s to inform employees, align teams around company strategy, drive engagement, or support change initiatives.

Next, know your audience. What messages should be targeted to specific locations, departments, roles, leadership groups, or frontline teams? Understanding audience needs is essential for delivering relevant and meaningful communication.

You will also need to consider preferred communication channels. Different groups may engage better through the intranet, newsletters, mobile apps, digital signage, or other platforms.

Once you have defined your goals, identified your target audiences, and selected the right channels, you’ll have a strong foundation for tailoring your communication plan effectively.

2. Create a Consistent Communication Cadence

Consistency builds trust. It is important to establish a regular rhythm for internal communication, such as daily news stories, weekly polls, monthly newsletters, or quarterly CEO videos.

Steady, predictable updates help employees feel connected to what’s happening across the organization—and make internal communication part of the everyday culture. Setting up a communication calendar can help ensure you meet employee expectations across channels and topics.

Image 1: Communication calendar to coordinate messaging in different channels.

Today’s workforce is diverse, mobile, and connected across a wide range of platforms. To maximize reach and effectiveness, use a combination of channels such as the intranet, mobile apps, email, Teams or Viva Engage, digital signage, and video updates.

Adapt content to the strengths of each channel—for example, a short video for mobile users or a longer intranet article for in-depth topics.

Also, match your choice of channels to the needs of different target groups—for instance, digital signage for factory workers or mobile messaging for employees on the go. 

Image 2: Surfacing the full intranet experience in Microsoft Teams.

Employees are much more likely to engage with content that feels relevant to them. Where possible, deliver targeted information that resonates with specific audiences—such as departments, locations, roles, or areas of interest.

Personalized communication shows that you understand your employees' needs and helps cut through the noise of information overload. Targeted communication also helps relieve employees from feeling overwhelmed by too many irrelevant updates.

Image 3: Editor selecting portals, campaigns, and promotion channels for a news article.

Internal communication should not be a one-way street. Today’s workforce expects timely, two-way communication, and organizations must create opportunities for dialogue and interaction.

Provide ways for employees to give feedback, ask questions, and share ideas—through polls, surveys, comment sections, discussion forums, ratings, or employee social platforms.

Fostering real conversations strengthens trust, builds engagement, and gives leadership valuable insights into employee sentiment.

Image 4: Social interactions and commenting of a news article.

Every page you publish and every message you send should reinforce your organization's culture and values—or at the very least, not contradict the desired image.

Clearly define your company's tone of voice, mission, and identity—and ensure that your communication style consistently reflects them. Today, AI tools can also help support consistency in content creation, tone, and messaging.

Using real stories, employee examples, and relatable language helps bring your culture to life and emotionally connect with employees.

Image 5: AI-powered content creation and quality assurance.

Empowering leaders and managers as communicators is a proven best practice. Look for ways to enable this group to establish communication channels and routines that allow them to be direct senders of important messages. Employees often trust information more when it comes from their immediate manager or team leader.

Provide training, resources, and tools to help leaders communicate effectively—whether it’s sharing strategic updates, recognizing achievements, or cascading key initiatives. Encourage managers to communicate in a way that feels personal, authentic, and connected to their teams.

To ensure this approach is successful, follow up regularly by measuring the frequency of manager-led communication and gathering feedback on communication quality through employee satisfaction surveys.

Image 6: Employee satisfaction survey on the intranet.

People absorb and retain information better when it’s presented visually. While traditional web pages and documents have their place, they are not always the best tools for capturing attention and driving active engagement. Instead, use videos, infographics, interactive content, and visual storytelling to make internal communication more engaging, accessible, and memorable.

Also, look for ways to allow employees to share their own stories, complete with images or videos, to bring internal communication to life and strengthen connection across teams.

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

Image 7: News article with image and video gallery on page.

The bottom line is simple: what gets measured gets improved. Implement dashboards and KPIs to track communication effectiveness.

Monitor metrics such as open rates, engagement rates, intranet page views, survey responses, feedback volumes, and time spent on content. Use this data to understand what’s working, adjust your approach, and continuously improve the impact of your internal communication efforts.

Learn more: 8 Effective Ways to Measure Intranet Impact and Drive Results

Image 8: Intranet usage dashboard within the Governance hub.

A modern intranet delivers on all the strategies above—it’s the central, trusted place where employees get personalized updates, join conversations, and stay aligned with company goals. It supports multi-channel publishing, enables targeting, facilitates two-way interaction, integrates visuals and media, and offers the analytics you need to measure and improve results.

By making your intranet the foundation of your communication approach, you can build a more connected, engaged, and informed workforce.

Improving communication doesn’t have to be overwhelming—small, strategic steps can make a big difference. Review your current intranet and practices, identify gaps, improve targeting and cadence, and build on what’s working.

To go deeper, download our Improving Internal Communication with a Modern Intranet guide for 20+ examples and actionable best practices. It’s your blueprint for turning your intranet into a true communication hub.

Please reach out for a tailored demo to see how Omnia meets your requirements and delivers on the nine intranet communication strategies above.