Am I the agony aunt for internal comms? Maybe! Because every week in this newsletter I answer one of your questions. Before we jump into today's question, I've got an invitation for you. On 16th April I'll be joining the very smart, creative and fun James O'Connor from Ryanair to talk about running internal comms for frontline employees.
This is part of a brand new internal comms event series by Workvivo called The Comms Show and I'm super excited to be a part of it. This will be value-packed, engaging and leave you brimming with ideas to bring to your own workplace.
If you're curious how internal comms works in Ryanair, and if their employee comms are as creative as their social media, then you don't want to miss here. Sign up here.
Ok let's get stuck into today's topic. This question comes from a Head of Internal Comms in Scotland, who asks:
“I’m in the market for a new intranet or digital platform but there are so many choices on the market I don’t know where to start. It's a bit overwhelming. How do you pick one (the right one)? How can I avoid wasting hours of my life in demos with tons of different companies?”
Great question. Let's talk intranets and platforms.
Firstly let me both congratuate and emphathise with you all at the same time: congratulations on having budget and buy-in to invest in a new platform, this is brilliant. And I emphathise because this is kind of a big beast of a project and the pressure to get the RIGHT platform at the right price for the right job is very overwhelming. So let's talk about it and see if we can break it down into different chunks and different options to make it a bit easier for you to start this project.
Now you're right when you say there are so many choices on the market. Way back in my day (did I just accidently reveal that I am OLD?) it was pretty much SharePoint or nothing for intranets. There wasn't much else on the market.
But man alive have we come a long way in the last decade. Now we have the opposite problem, we are truly spoiled for choice with tons of different platforms and providers, all of them telling us they are the best one and we should pick them. It's great, right, but it's also kind of exhausting and difficult to navigate.
Here's what I would do if I was trying to pick a new intranet or digital platform.
Get clear on your requirements first
Before you start shopping for a platform or browsing vendor websites, you need to get crystal clear on your requirements. What purpose should this platform serve? What does it need to deliver for the business? What do you need it to do for you and why?
Do this deep thinking up front, it will save you a lot of wasted time and effort later on and will help you shortlist platforms that can deliver what you need.
Here are some key things you should define early on:
- The business problem(s) you're trying to solve
- The key user groups and their specific needs
- Your list of "must-have" functionality vs. "nice-to-have" features
- How the platform fits into your broader digital ecosystem
This help you keep the core purpose of the platform front of mind so you don't get distracted by shiny features that you don't necessarily need. Vendors are very good at showcasing sexy new AI features but if those don't align with your organisational goals they're just expensive distractions.
You can also use your documented set of requirements to create a framework to evaluate different platforms, making it easy for you to compare them on essential features and make a decision at the end.
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Meet Katherine Fenech
Katherine is a member of The Curious Tribe, my membership community for internal communicators.
She is curious and ambitious and she lives in California. I love working with her and seeing her take action on what she's learning in the community.
Don't take my word for it, here's what Katherine says:
"Because of The Curious Tribe I've been able to build an internal channel strategy, including governance recommendations, for the first time. I was nervous about potentially missing the mark, but using Joanna's templates and advice from both her and other Curious Tribe members made it an easy process."
Katherine loves the tribe and maybe you will too. Want to join us?
Use this letter to convince your employer to pay for your membership.
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Partner with IT from day one
The next thing I'd do is make some best friends in the IT department and make this project a collaboration. Because your IT department can make or break your intranet project, and they can easily block your efforts if you're going way off piste and not including them.
Your need your IT team to make sure that the platforms you're looking at will meet their security standards, can integrate with existing systems and are up to scratch from a data perspective. They can help you identify any duplication between your potential new intranet and any existing platforms or software they already have in the company, and will be your partner during implementation and launch (and beyond).
So before you do a single thing, talk with your IT department and make sure they know what you're trying to do and make this a joint effort. This will make sure that you can select a platform that delivers on both communication goals and technical requirements.
The last thing you want is to fall in love with a platform only to discover IT can’t support it or that you’re paying for features already available through existing tools.
Comb through the latest expert research
Now it's time to start combing through the latest expert research to get an overview of what's on the market and what your options are.
A good place to start is the Clearbox Intranet Report 2025. This is an annual report that gives a really good, comprehensive overview of all the intranets and internal comms platforms on the market. It compares and contrasts different platforms by looking at their features and strengths. Here's a snippet of what to expect:
I like this report because it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you in terms of an overview of what's available and what each platform can offer you. It can help you create a shortlist of vendors to look at in more depth. This report is free but fair warning, it's MASSIVE at more than 800 pages. I recommend this report a lot, you can download it here.
You can also look at reviews on the Gartner site to get a sense of how people are rating each platform and what deeper insights you can get. Below is a sample of what to expect - you can see an overall rating from 1-5 and how that score is distributed, and some ratings for different parts of the customer experience. Have a look on Gartner here.
Bring in the experts
Now if you’re short on time and you don't have time to trawl through reports or reviews, then perhaps you want to outsource this work. If you've got budget available, you can hire a specialist consultant or agency to help you identify the right digital platform for you. They can do things like: help you understand what the platform needs to deliver for your business, figure out the features you really need, create a shortlist of platforms you can look at, set up demos for you to look at the platforms and help you with the contract and implementation stage too.
Off the top of my head, some of the companies who can help you with this include Cocentric, Simply and Clearbox. I'm sure there are plenty more too.
Yes, there’s a cost involved, but weigh this against the value of your time and the risk of making a poor platform choice. If you don't have a budget for this then it's worth asking your IT department if they do - it's a joint project after all, remember?
Learn from success stories
Another approach you can take is to do a bit of research around who has won awards in categories like “Best Intranet” or “Best Digital Channel” in the last couple of years. Look for what platforms these winning teams are using and see if there are any platform names that come up again and again. This may be a good indicator that this is a platform worth looking it, once it matches up with your requirements of course. I find that these kind of award wins can show that platforms can really perform in the real world and deliver value.
Be fussy in your demos
The intranet vendors reading this will hate me now, because I implore you to be very fussy and exacting when you do get to the point of doing demos with vendors. Doing demos can be a huge investment of your time, so you want to make the most of it. Vendors will generally have a generic demo they can show to you, but if you give them specific questions up front then they can tailor the demo to show you exactly what you're interested in.
For example, you might ask them to focus the demo on things like:
- What analytics are available and how can you disaggregate them?
- What audience segmentation is available for targeted comms?
- What tools can this platform replace in my organisation?
- Can you give me an example of a governance system one of your clients designed and introduced successfully?
Be precious about your time here and invest it wisely. You're the buyer here, you need to make sure this demo works for you and you get exactly what you need out of it. Make sure you ask vendors to show you the specific workflows or features you are interested in, rather than just getting an overview of every single feature in the platform. Go back to you requirements and use that as your framework. This approach provides a much clearer picture of how the platform would work in your specific context.
Final thoughts
In my view, there's no "best" platform to pick. There are many platforms that are brilliant but you need to find the one that is right for YOU. Which one will help you solve your specific business problem? Which one will get over the line with your IT team? Which one is available in your budget? Getting deeply curious during the selection process will help you find the right fit for you.
Thanks for reading and stay curious,
Joanna
Find me on YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and check out my book​
Want to work together?
- Join The Curious Tribe. This is my membership community for ambitious, curious communicators who want to achieve more in their roles and have fun at the same time. Membership allows you to work directly with me for 12 months, make deep connections with other communication pros who 'get it' and improve your skills through training and learning. More info here.
- Ready to review your channels and content but don't know where to start? Download my practical Internal Comms Audit Playbook to guide you through a DIY audit - no expensive consultant needed.​ This has ready-to-use templates and checklists to give you a systematic way to do your own audit which you can repeat every single year. Get it here.
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- Enroll in my course, "How to use ChatGPT as your personal assistant". This is a practical, on-demand course where I'll show you 38 specific ways to use ChatGPT to help you in your job as an internal communicator. You can enroll in the course here.