What does intranet adoption look like? Measure this!
- John Scott
Good adoption is central to the success of any intranet. An intranet that is not used has little value, so understandably intranet teams spend a significant amount of effort in trying to ensure there are good levels of intranet adoption and usage.
A successful approach to improving adoption must centre on measurement. You cannot work on improving adoption if you can’t track the numbers. The very act of measuring adoption not only means you are more likely to focus on improving the numbers; It also means you can show the value of the intranet to stakeholders, as well as the value of the contribution of the intranet team.
How you choose to measure intranet adoption will depend on the following factors:
- What adoption actually means to you: Adoption is a term that can cover multiple different aspects of intranet usage. This is reflected in the multiple ways you can measure adoption.
- The metrics and analytics package you are using: The solution(s) you have in place will impact the extent to which can successfully measure adoption. Relying on SharePoint metrics out of the box is rarely sufficient and also has a frustrating 90-day limit on the data.
- What you intend to do with the numbers: Measuring intranet adoption requires an investment in time. You will likely want to prioritise what you measure. For example, these may be only the numbers you intend to act upon, what feels reliable or what you need to demonstrate value to your stakeholders.
What are the best ways to measure intranet adoption?
In this post we’re going to look at some of the main ways to measure intranet adoption. Note that there is not necessarily a “right” or “wrong” way to measure adoption and some types of numbers have both advantages and pitfalls. Numbers also often need some explanation or qualitative data to make sense of them. For example, more time spent on the intranet can indicate people are more interested in the content on the intranet (good), or they are spending more time on the intranet because they can’t find what they need quickly (bad).
You’ll also notice that some of these “adoption” metrics are not always wholly about adoption and cover other areas of intranet success and value. This is deliberate in that some metrics are likely to strongly correlate with levels of adoption, while others overlap, so we have covered everything here.
Active users
What proportion of your workforce is actually using your intranet? The standard way to do this is to count the number of “active” users (those actively visiting the intranet) over a given time period, and calculate the proportion compared to your overall number of users who are able to access the intranet. An average is then usually derived, so you can then say something like ‘on average 74% of employees who have intranet access visited it on a weekly basis in Q1’.
The most common time periods applied are daily active users (DAU), weekly active users (WAU), and monthly active users (MAU). Segmenting these users will also give you insights into parts of the business where adoption needs to approve, such as your frontline workforce.
Engagement with content
Intranets are about communications and content, and there are a number of statistics that show engagement with content, right down to the page and item levels. Often these numbers are more useful in relation to each other, showing the most important pages or communications, but it can also reflect general intranet engagement and adoption over time. Numbers showing engagement with content also overlap with communications metrics. Note that sometimes page views do not necessarily indicate business value or that a message is actually “landing.”
Content engagement numbers include:
- Page views
- Time on page
- Scroll depth
- Number of comments
- Number of likes
- Number of shares
- Page ratings
- And more!
Search metrics
Intranets are designed to help employees find the information they need, so search remains a critical function. Measuring search adoption is useful and can indicate trust and general usage of the intranet. Tracking additional search performance metrics that aren’t necessarily “adoption” is also important in helping to improve search, which in turn will improve intranet adoption, so we’ve covered a number of wider search metrics here:
- The volume of intranet searches over a period of time
- The use of different search facilities (quick search, advanced search, people search etc.) over time
- Zero return searches that do not yield any results
- Search abandonment rate
- Proportion of successful searches.
Others communication metrics
Intranet communications are often coordinated as part of a wider multi-channel approach to digital communications. Here, intranet adoption can be reflected in metrics for other communication channels that help to bring users to the intranet. In particular, these include:
- Open rates for “intranet round-up” newsletters that primarily feature intranet-based stories
- Click-through-rates on these newsletters.
There are also other comms metrics that can reflect adoption of different content formats, in particular those relating to video; for example, how long do people watch a video when viewed through the intranet?
Content pipeline and quality
Most intranets are based on a decentralised publishing model, with content owned by a community of distributed publishers and content owners spread throughout the business. Sometimes these content owners may be comms professionals, but generally they are busy people with a day job.
The success of an intranet often relies on the ability and willingness for these people to successfully keep content up to date and also meet publishing standards set by the central intranet or comms team. The central intranet team often have to work hard to engage and train publishers.
Intranet “adoption” in terms of content owners and publishers carrying out their responsibilities is actually one of the most important factors to track. Here, there are a number of metrics that can potentially help:
- The overall number of active content owners.
- The volume and cadence of new content, although “volume” is not always a good concept as it does not take quality in as a factor.
- The frequency of content updates.
- The proportion of content owners following a particular prescribed content review or governance process, for example an annual review of their pages.
- The adoption of a particular request relating to your publishing standards (such as content owners being asked to make a specific format change on their site or pages).
- Attendance at content owner check-ins, training or similar.
User satisfaction scores
A major reflection of adoption is how users feel about the intranet, including perceptions of how and how often they use the intranet too. Of course, user satisfaction is different to adoption, but a well-regarded intranet is usually reflected in good levels of usage.
User satisfaction relating to the intranet is usually derived using surveys and polls and can cover:
- User perception of how often they use the intranet and also the related level of use (for example “how many times do you use the intranet per week”).
- Classic user satisfaction metrics such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) or the Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score.
- The contribution of the intranet to general communications or engagement (a question sometimes asked in a wider employee engagement survey).
- Specific questions in your survey about different intranet aspects or features.
- The percentage of staff actually responding to an intranet satisfaction survey.
Adoption of particular intranet features
Intranets have many features and capabilities. Working out the levels of adoption for different intranet areas and functions not only reflects general intranet adoption but can also show which areas are underused. Intranet features where measuring adoption can be useful include:
- Levels of customisation for different features, for example setting favourite links (possible with Lightspeed365’s app launcher feature).
- Levels of people profile completion (again possible with Lightspeed365’s People Directory feature).
- Participation in polls (again, another Lightspeed365 feature).
- Blogging and other user-generated content.
- Peer-to-peer recognition.
- And more!
Some intranets also have integrations, for example ServiceNow where users can then submit a ticket directly from the intranet. The adoption of integrations can also be a useful measure.
Don’t forget other intranet success metrics
In this post we’ve focused on intranet adoption, but there is a plethora of other intranet metrics that reflect value and success:
- The results of usability testing
- Time saved
- Reduction in helpdesk calls or emails
- Increase in employee self-service
- And more!
Seven tips for measuring intranet adoption
- Define what adoption means to you and then work backwards from there to work out the best metrics that will reflect your view of adoption and usage. This will help keep your metrics strategy focused on what matters.
- As we’ve already noted, there is a lot of overlap between measuring adoption and measuring overall intranet success. Consider wrapping your adoption analytics into a wider view of intranet success.
- Numbers only tell half a story and sometimes metrics and analytical data require context. Focus on both qualitative and quantitative data to get a 360-picture of how your intranet is being adopted. User feedback can be particularly valuable.
- If you want to measure intranet adoption comprehensively over time you may have to invest in an additional package. SharePoint out of the box has limitations. Thankfully, there are other useful analytics products that can be used in parallel and some such as Microsoft Clarity are free.
- Have a regular and repeatable process in place to review the numbers and then make any improvements, then measure again to see the impact. Having this diarised means you are more likely to stay focused on acting upon the numbers.
- If you’re starting out with measuring adoption, establish some baseline stats and then track the same stats over time to access progress. If you are launching a new intranet and want to track a rise in adoption, don’t forget to measure adoption on your legacy intranet.
- Not all intranet adoption metrics indicate value, and some can be vanity metrics. Page views, for example, are not always indicative of true adoption.
Need to improve intranet adoption?
If your intranet adoption numbers are flat-lining or even declining, you’ll need to do something about it. Lightspeed365 may be just what you need to improve your SharePoint intranet, bringing compelling new features, more attractive designs and greater flexibility to your intranet and its content, all at a surprisingly low price point. Want to find out more? Then arrange a Lightspeed365 demo.
Frequently asked questions
What do we mean by intranet adoption?
At a high level, intranet adoption refers to the levels of usage of an intranet by employees in terms of visiting the intranet, engaging with content, using its features, and actively participating. There are multiple different aspects of “adoption” which also indicate how an intranet is being used and by whom.
What are the best metrics to measure adoption?
There are a wide number of different numbers that measure intranet adoption and focusing on a range of different numbers is usually the best option. Daily or monthly active users are popular intranet adoption metrics.
How can I use adoption metrics to improve my intranet?
You can use adoption metrics over time to work out which aspects of the intranets are well used and those that are less so. By tracking these numbers, you can then make changes or boost awareness to improve the numbers. Having a regular, diarised process to review metrics is the best way to drive continual improvement.
