How long should an intranet news article be?

500 words! That’s the sweet spot for the length of an intranet news article. And longer is better than shorter.

Surprised? We were! Isn’t the general consensus that short, concise news articles are better?

Still, it’s hard to argue with real life data. So, we took this finding to our panel of intranet experts and thought leaders from around the world to get their take on it.

Most weren’t at all surprised. As a generality, the world’s top intranet thought leaders said articles of about 300 words looked like social media posts, while articles of 500-1000 words actually had relevant content for employees to consume. The “What’s In It For Me” articles always get the most engagement.

What we found about the length of news articles in SWOOP Analytics’ benchmarking study of SharePoint intranets:

• The top ranking 20% of news articles averaged around 500 words; which appears to be the sweet spot.

• Perhaps surprisingly, there isn’t a big drop off in readership if an article stretches to 1,500 words.

• News articles with 300 words or less had the least engagement.

Suzie Robinson, consultant, ClearBox Consulting.

Suzie Robinson, consultant at specialist intranet consultancy ClearBox Consulting, says shorter articles being less popular than longer articles doesn’t surprise her because the short articles look like social media posts or feel “less important” since time hasn’t been spent writing something longer.

“Where there are short pieces of news, I’d suggest either gathering them together into a theme, or potentially consider a different channel to share them,” Suzie advised.

“Otherwise, the opening would have to effectively explain why a vital topic is being covered in so few words.

“Alternatively, if the shorter messages are associated with a systems outage or a product recall, then these should be presented in a different manner to news so that people understand the urgency behind the message.

“This will also stop publishers feeling the need to pad out what should be simple messaging.”

When writing an intranet news article, Suzie suggests aiming for one Microsoft Word page.

Chris Harrer, Assistant Vice President, Internal Communications – Digital, Comcast.

Chris Harrer, Assistant Vice President, Internal Communications – Digital, at US-based technology and entertainment giant Comcast with almost 190,000 employees, has done his own internal research on the optimal length of intranet news articles and agrees around 500 words, or more, gets the most engagement.

“My previous research also showed that there was not a drop off when the article went beyond the 1,000-word range but sometimes increased,” Chris said.

“There are many factors to consider with the word count metric and it depends on the type of content that is being assessed. The WIFM (what’s in it for me) content that is very important to an employee about benefits, or some type of perk, will always outperform other content nine times out of 10 no matter what length.

“But for your everyday company content, the 500-word mark is the best approach.”

Jonas Bladt Hansen, co-founder, Next Level IC.

Jonas Bladt Hansen, co-founder of Danish internal communications consultancy Next Level IC, says one reason shorter news articles may receive less engagement is that they often don’t provide much more information than what’s already in the headline.

“Having said that, internal communications and intranet managers can leverage this knowledge by training themselves and their content editors to keep articles concise and within the range of 500 words,” he said.

Jonathan Phillips, co-founder, Lithos Partners.

Jonathan Phillips, co-founder of Lithos Partners, a UK-based digital communication and collaboration consultancy, points out that average silent reading rates for adults are 300 words per minute. Therefore, a 500-word article is a 1.5 minute read.

“That’s perfect for ‘fillers’ in between work activity – reflecting work patterns,” Jonathan said.

“People spend a limited amount of time on the intranet. Internal communicators can make optimal use of that time by keeping articles short, allowing for a higher number of articles per day to be consumed – better for IC (internal communication) teams.”

Sharon O’Dea, co-founder, Lithos Partners.

Jonathan’s fellow co-founder at Lithos Partners, Sharon O’Dea, says intranets are typically accessed between other tasks, perhaps while opening a browser window.

“The concise articles you might consume in these moments are ‘FYI’ - they’re typically just informational, so it’s no surprise they don’t prompt engagement,” Sharon said.

“Long-form content doesn’t fit in these short windows of opportunity. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a place – long reads are often appreciated if they’re adding value and colour – but all content should respect the readers’ time.

“You could make these work better for both audiences by labelling long reads so people can return to them in longer browsing sessions, while including a summary of key points so the message isn’t missed by time-pressed audiences.”

Susan Hanley, Microsoft SharePoint and M365 specialist.

Microsoft SharePoint and M365 specialist Susan Hanley was surprised by the 500-word sweet spot finding.

In her vast experience, Susan said she’s found 400 words is the magic mark. More importantly, Susan says the measure should be about engagement.

“I don’t think comments or likes should count – the true measure of engagement is whether the article generated the intended action,” she said.

“I’m not sure why fewer than 300 words gets less engagement – maybe fewer words feels less substantive? I feel like maybe more data could be helpful here or maybe a broader audience to see whether this is true for organisations of all sizes.” 

Jamie Stokes, Director, Digital Communications, Cox Enterprises.

Jamie Stokes, Director, Digital Communications at Cox Enterprises, America’s largest private broadband company, also gravitated towards the shorter articles of 300-500 words as the sweet spot from her experience.

“Our findings showed that highly engaged articles on our intranet contained 300-500 words,” Jamie said.

“Other contributors to successful articles included photos with employees, videos and article headlines 20-60 characters in length and conveyed ‘what’s in it for me’.”