We measured the length of all the articles and recurring features of an employee publication over the course of six months. We identified the ideal content of the publication, starting with its objectives of supporting the company’s goals and brand attributes. We identified the content executives and employees wanted to see in it. Some of the findings:
- While some key words from the company’s goals and brand attributes appeared in many of the stories, there were no direct references to the brand and only a few to one or more goals.
- While the mix of geographical content generally matched the mix of revenue generated in those geographies, employees in focus groups perceived that the U.S. was over-represented. A closer look at the stories found that even when an article was primarily about some other part of the world, the individuals quoted were too often from the U.S. One of our recommendations was to avoid this type of dilution of international impact by trying harder to reach local sources for comments and quotes.