ConocoPhillips’s 16,000 employees and contractors rely on the intranet, The Mark to get news and information about company operations and initiatives. In a recent redesign, the intranet team focused on improving publishing processes and added helpful resources for content authors and managers. Photo-sizing tools and local targeting for employees at 15 company locations have improved the consistency and relevance of the intranet content, as well as the employees’ satisfaction.

ConocoPhillps' intranet homepage
ConocoPhillips’s intranet homepage features global and local content. Location tags are required fields when publishers input content because they drive which employees and locations see that content. ​​​​​​

Balancing Global and Local Content in a Distributed Model  

ConocoPhillips follows a distributed content-management model, where employees and subject matter experts can freely submit intranet content. People write articles, record podcasts, and create videos to share information.

While the corporate-communications team manages global content, 1–4 local publishers are trusted to manage content at each of the company’s 15 locations. However, managing local intranet content is only one part of their jobs. Because publishers needed fulfill their intranet responsibilities on top of their full-time roles, it was even more important to find process efficiencies.

Involving Publishers in the Intranet Redesign

A 2-day discovery and design workshop kicked off the intranet redesign and included members of the communications, IT, and HR teams. The teams discussed and prioritized the changes needed; by the end of the workshop, four guiding principles emerged:

  • Drive personal efficiency by connecting employees with content and tools
  • Focus on employee needs and deliver value
  • Concentrate on findability
  • Streamline the publishing process to enhance content delivery

A few months before launch, local content managers began testing the content and link publishing processes. The goal was to ensure that the correct content was displayed and that the content–management system worked properly. From this early testing with publishers, several issues surfaced, all of which were resolved before launch:

  • No established standards or processes for image sizing
  • Unclear names of content fields in the content-management system
  • Challenges with time zones, publication dates, and times
  • Cache-related issues which hid published content

New Publisher Tools and Resources

A week before launch, local publishers participated in virtual content training. Sessions covered different content types: alerts, company news, events, links in the navigation menus and footer, and more.Publishers also received a toolkit of resources to ensure content quality, including:

  • A review of the editorial process: The team wanted to continue doing what was already working well, so a recap of the process clarified expectations and demonstrated how new tools, resources, and features complimented publishers’ existing workflows.
  • Publisher guidelines: A publishing-guidelines document gave detailed best practices for the new intranet’s design. For example, it indicated that text on top of images did not work well.
  • Photo-sizing tools: The team wanted high-quality banners on the new intranet, so it developed a custom photo-sizing and selection tool in PowerPoint, a software which publishers already used. The tool ensured that images and graphics looked good in thumbnail and widescreen views.
  • Source imagery: To avoid duplicate or redundant banners on the intranet, the team gave publishers several new image sources to pull from, including the company’s media library, a royalty-free online library, and a bank of default images stored in the editing apps.
  • Tip sheets: Tip sheets with links to the relevant areas of the content-management system helped content publishers understand how and where to add articles to the new intranet.
Intranet content guidelines example.
An excerpt from the ConocoPhillips intranet-publishing guidelines, created to help content publishers optimize content for the intranet.
Image tools for ConocoPhillips' intranet.
Another page from the ConocoPhillips intranet publishing guidelines helped content creators optimize imagery. Examples are a powerful way to communicate guidelines, especially when both dos and don’ts are provided.

Measuring and Monitoring Content Success

Content success is monitored through benchmarks and metrics such as average visits per day, views per article, session duration, and time on page. The team reviews data in Google Analytics.  Since launch, there has been a steady increase in usage.

The team also looks at content performance by location and topic to see which sections and links receive the most activity. This information helps to optimize content placement and informs new- content decisions. Content formats are tracked to understand which resonates best with for each type of message.

Content publishers also have access to analytics data through a Google Data Studio dashboard. The dashboard allows local publishers to quickly view key-performance metrics and filter the data to understand content performance and findability.

Conclusion

The team at ConocoPhillips offered this advice to other teams looking to support intranet publishers to ensure quality content:

“Support for publishers should include virtual and live training, detailed tip sheets, and easy photo-sizing tools. Maintain open and ongoing communication with all content publishers, regardless of time zone around the world, to ensure appropriate standards are met.”

To explore the full case study and review the library of screenshots depicting their winning design details, explore our 2021 Intranet Design Annual, available now for purchase.