Intranet Management 7 simple tips for adding images to your intranet content Images make intranet content more accessible, more memorable, and more shareable. Here are some best practices for adding great images to your intranet. 5 minute read You might also like… Whitepaper Intranet use cases Whitepaper 10 Award Winning Intranets If you contribute to content creation on your intranet, you already know how challenging it is to get employees and colleagues to read your posts. Don’t take it too personally though. A typical web page visitor actually reads only around 20% of the words on a page. This is because your visitor is actually skimming, not reading. Intranet content creation can be a lot of work. But text is only half of the problem. Savvy content creators know that it’s images that drive traffic and shares. Even Google recognizes that more images means more engagement. As you’ve likely noticed, search results have gotten a lot more visual. According to the data, 63 percent of users who make Google image searches and click on pictures ultimately visit the website where the picture originated. Images make content more accessible, more memorable, and more shareable, and this is especially true when it comes to intranets. Here are some best practices for adding great images to your intranet. What role do images play on an award winning intranet? View the impressive imagery on customers' finest intranets. Download now 1. Leverage stock photos If you don’t have a vast image library to choose from, employees may resort to Google to find one. Not only does this process take time, but grabbing the first image you find on Google could potentially put your business at risk of copyright infringement and reputational damage. At ThoughtFarmer we have an integration with Unsplash to give our customers direct and free access to a library of more than two million stock images. With Unsplash, you no longer have to search for the perfect image or worry about copyright issues. You can effortlessly search, select, insert, and edit images without leaving your intranet—all while building your internal brand and engaging employees. And if you haven’t browsed stock photos recently, you will be happy to see that they have come a long way in the last ten years. They no longer are limited to stiff images of man writing mathematical equations on a transparent whiteboard. 2. Base image allocation on scroll-depth Intranet content tends to be short and concise, but there are still times where longer form may be necessary. In this case, consider adding an image at every scroll depth, or per every 75-100 words. This will increase the readability and scanability of your intranet content. If your intranet pages become heavy with text, readers have to work twice as hard, and they are likely to lose interest. Images are much easier for the brain to process. 3. Incorporate charts and graphs We all know how uninspiring financial information like sales figures can be. This is why it’s important to visualize your data whenever possible. An informative chart can become an engaging content asset all its own, and one good graph can be enough to make a post engaging. Diagrams are also excellent additions to any post, as they transform complex ideas into memorable content. If all this feels out of your league, seek out a data wizard—or just someone who enjoys spreadsheets—within your organization to help with this (they usually aren’t too difficult to find, and they often enjoy creating fancy charts). 4. Feature your people whenever possible Images of faces have a powerful way of capturing our attention and make content more visually engaging. We see this a lot in websites, where about us and team pages attract high visitation and in stock image libraries where the majority of all categories feature people’s faces. We also see this on social media where faces are 38% more likely to receive likes and 32% more likely to receive comments, even after controlling for social network reach and activity. Consider adding images of your employees whenever possible (assuming of course you have consent!). As the majority of intranet content relates to your people—company news, sales updates, and team initiatives—it shouldn’t be too challenging to put this into action. 5. Try an infographic Another highly-engaging image type is infographics. When designed correctly, they stand on their own, without any supportive text. They can also succinctly tell a story. Without some design help, this may feel out of your league, but there are a few online tools to assist you. First you will need an idea or concept that you want to communicate. This could include quarterly sales figures, DEI initiatives, or customer churn rates. 6. Leverage video Video is the ultimate visual, and is a powerful and versatile tool for sharing information with employees. There’s a reason YouTube is the #2 most frequently used search engine in the world, after GoogleIt can deliver just about any type of internal message, while connecting with employees on a personal level. Modern intranets make it easy to incorporate video on your intranet, making information accessible from any device or location. To effectively leverage video on your intranet, consider creating CEO video blogs, company announcements, intranet launch announcements (see how Southern Star created a humorous intranet launch video), and employee training and onboarding videos. 7. Be strategic with image selection Finally, aim to be purposeful in the images you select on your intranet. If you are in a rush, it’s tempting to select color blocks, or abstract imagery. However, strong and relevant images will go a long way in increasing the visitation and popularity of your intranet content. This applies to both content pages and parent-level pages.