SharePoint News Web Part: Complete Guide to Intranet Communications

SharePoint News Web Part: Complete Guide to Intranet Communications

The SharePoint News web part is the engine behind modern SharePoint intranet communications. When configured correctly, it delivers the right news to the right employees — with targeted content by department, location, role, or project. When left at defaults, it becomes noise that nobody reads.

This guide covers everything you need to know about SharePoint News for enterprise intranet communications.

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Types of News in SharePoint

News Posts vs. News Links

News Posts are SharePoint pages created within a site, displayed in the News web part. They're full SharePoint pages with rich layouts, text, images, video, and embedded content.

News Links are links to external content (other websites, documents, external news sources) that appear in the News web part alongside native SharePoint news posts. They display an external URL with a custom title, description, and thumbnail.

When to use each:

• News Post: Company announcements, HR policy changes, IT updates, leadership messages
• News Link: Industry news, external press releases, links to SharePoint documents, links to forms

News from Multiple Sites (Rolled-Up News)

The News web part can aggregate news from multiple sites:

• This site: News from the current site only
• News from all sites in the hub: News posts from the current site + all hub-associated sites
• Select sites: Manually specify 1-30 sites to pull news from
• Recommended for current user: Personalized news based on user's sites, groups, and interactions (requires Microsoft Graph)

Enterprise pattern: Corporate hub pulls news from all department communication sites, creating a unified company newsfeed.

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Setting Up the News Web Part

Adding News to a Page

• Edit the page → Add a web part → News
• Configure the web part properties panel:
• News Source: This site, Hub sites, Select sites, or Recommended
• Layout: Top story, List, Carousel, Tiles, or Side-by-side
• Number of news posts to show: 1-10
• Filter: By category, date range, audience, or managed properties

Layout Options

| Layout | Best For |

|--------|---------|

| Top story | Featured news with large hero image |

| List | High-volume news (department portal, compliance updates) |

| Carousel | Visually prominent news on intranet home page |

| Tiles | Multiple news items at equal visual weight |

| Side-by-side | 2-column layout for compact news sections |

Recommendation for company home page: Top story layout for the primary news section above the fold, Tiles for "More News" below.

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Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is the most powerful News web part feature for large organizations — it shows employees only the news relevant to them.

Enabling Audience Targeting

• Library Settings (in the Site Pages library) → Audience targeting settings → Enable audience targeting
• Now each news post can be tagged with an audience

Configuring Audiences

SharePoint audience targeting uses Microsoft Entra ID groups and attribute-based audiences:

• Microsoft 365 groups (Teams, distribution lists)
• Security groups
• Email distribution lists

Example audiences:

• Sales team news → Sales distribution group
• IT maintenance windows → All-IT security group
• Benefits enrollment reminders → All FTE group
• Regional announcements → "Region: Northeast" security group
• Leadership communications → "VP and above" security group

Targeting a News Post

When creating or editing a news post:

• Page Details panel → Enable audience targeting → Yes
• Audience section → Add audiences (type group name, select from dropdown)

Important: If a news post has no audience targeted, it shows to everyone. If a post is targeted to specific audiences, users not in those audiences will not see the post in the News web part — but they can still access it directly via URL.

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Creating High-Quality News Posts

News Post Anatomy

A well-structured SharePoint news post includes:

• Hero image: 1920x1080px minimum, visually compelling
• Headline: 8-12 words maximum, action-oriented
• Summary/description (used in web part previews): 150-200 characters
• Author: Person column with profile photo (drives credibility and engagement)
• Body: Structured with headings, clear CTA at bottom
• Category: For filtering and organization (see below)

News Categories

SharePoint doesn't have a native "category" field for news, but you can create one:

• Site Pages library → + Add column → Choice → Name: "News Category"
• Choices: Announcements, IT Updates, HR News, Leadership Messages, Events, Compliance
• Make it visible in the default view
• Configure the News web part to filter by category on department-specific pages

News Post Templates

Create reusable news post page templates:

• Create a news post with the desired layout (text zones, image placeholders, CTA)
• Page details → Save as template
• Template appears when users select "New → News post"

Common templates:

• Executive Message Template (large photo, pull quote)
• IT Maintenance Window Template (time/date/systems affected/contact)
• HR Policy Update Template (summary/key changes/effective date/FAQ link)
• Event Announcement Template (date/time/location/registration link)

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News Approval Workflows

For regulated communications or quality control, configure approval before publishing:

SharePoint Page Approval

• Site Pages library → Library settings → Content approval → Require content approval → Yes
• Now: Saving a news post sets it to "Pending" status
• Approvers receive notification → Review → Approve or Reject
• Only approved posts appear in the News web part

Power Automate Approval Flow

For a more sophisticated workflow with multi-step approval:

• Power Automate → Create automated flow
• Trigger: When a page is created in Site Pages library
• Step 1: Parallel approval to Communications Manager + Department Head
• Step 2: On approval → Publish page → Send notification to intranet subscribers
• On rejection: Send rejection note to author with comments

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News Digest Emails

SharePoint can automatically send email digests of recent news to employees:

Enable News Digest

• News web part settings → Enable news emails → Weekly digest
• Frequency: Daily or weekly
• Audience: All site followers or targeted email list

News digest configuration options:

• How many news items to include (3-5 recommended)
• Include news from: this site, hub sites, or selected sites
• Send on: specific day of week (Monday morning works well)
• Template: Microsoft's default email template (not customizable without Power Automate)

Custom News Digest with Power Automate

For fully customized news digest emails (branded, filtered, targeted):

• Trigger: Scheduled recurrence (every Monday 8am)
• Get news posts published in the last 7 days from Site Pages library
• Filter by category or audience
• Build HTML email with news items using Send Email with HTML body
• Send via SendGrid or Exchange Online

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Analytics and Engagement Measurement

SharePoint provides news engagement analytics:

Page-Level Analytics

Each news post has analytics accessible to site owners:

• Total page views (all time and rolling 30 days)
• Unique viewers
• Average time on page
• Top entry points (direct link, search, news web part)

Access: News post page → Page details → Usage analytics

Site-Level News Analytics

SharePoint Admin Center → Active Sites → [Intranet site] → Activity tab:

• News posts with most views
• Trending news in the past 7/30 days
• Unique users consuming news

Engagement Benchmarks

Healthy intranet news engagement:

• 30%+ of employees view at least one news post per month
• 5%+ click-through on news digest emails
• Top company news: 50%+ reach in first 24 hours
• Department news: 40%+ of department members

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News Web Part Best Practices

1. Post frequency matters

• Company hub: 3-5 posts per week (consistent cadence builds habit)
• Department site: 1-2 posts per week minimum
• Irregular posting trains users to stop checking

2. Use hero images consistently

Text-only news posts have 40-60% lower engagement than posts with compelling images. Create an image library of branded backgrounds for quick news post creation.

3. Keep headlines under 10 words

The News web part truncates long headlines in most layouts. Test your headline in the layout you're using.

4. Always fill in the Description field

The description (shown in web part previews) is your hook. If it's blank, the first 150 characters of the body appear — often not compelling.

5. Tag posts with appropriate audiences before publishing

You cannot add audience targeting after a post has been viewed — the audience data is set at publish time for analytics purposes.

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Conclusion

SharePoint News is one of the most visible employee experience features in the Microsoft 365 platform. Organizations that invest in news post quality, audience targeting, and approval governance see measurable improvements in employee engagement and information recall.

EPC Group has deployed SharePoint intranet communications platforms for organizations ranging from 1,000 to 100,000 employees. Contact us for a free consultation on building an engaging SharePoint communications experience.