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How to personalize news posts in SharePoint using Audience Targeting

Posted on June 18, 2020
SharePoint

News Widget happens to be one of my favorite web parts in SharePoint Online. I blogged previously on how you can use it to promote the news and announcements across the organization as well as how you can tag them. One of the new features rolled out in SharePoint is an ability to target the news to specific audiences, allowing you to display the news post only to a select group of users. This is huge as it will enable us to personalize the news posts/intranet and make it more relevant. Let me explain how to achieve this and personalize news posts in SharePoint using Audience Targeting.

Step 1: Enable Audience Targeting in the Site Pages Library

  1. Since News posts are pages in SharePoint Online, we need first to enable Audience Targeting in the Site Pages library. Navigate to the Site Pages by going to Gear Icon > Site Contents Newswebparttargetaudience1
  2. Click on Site Pages library Newswebparttargetaudience2
  3. Next, click on Gear Icon > Library Settings Newswebparttargetaudience3
  4. Click on Audience targeting settings personalize news posts in SharePoint using Audience Targeting
  5. Click the checkbox next to Enable audience targeting and click OK Newswebparttargetaudience5

Step 2: Enable Audience Targeting in the News Web Part

  1. Edit the page where News Web Part resides
  2. Click the pencil icon next to News Web Part Newswebparttargetaudience6
  3. Toggle the switch on for Audience Targeting personalize news posts in SharePoint using Audience Targeting
  4. Hit Apply at the bottom of the sidebar and then publish the main page

Step 3: Specify Audience Targeting for a News Post

The last step for us to personalize news posts in SharePoint using Audience Targeting is by specifying the target audience on the news post (page) itself.

  1. Create a new news post or click on the existing news post you want to specify the audience for.
  2. Click the Edit button Newswebparttargetaudience9
  3. Click Page details Newswebparttargetaudience10
  4. In the panel on the right side, under Audience, specify the security group(s) of users you want to see this post. These can either be security groups or individual users personalize news posts in SharePoint using Audience Targeting
  5. Click Update News to publish the news post and save the changes Newswebparttargetaudience11
  6. The news post will now only be visible to those who are part of the security groups specified above Newswebparttargetaudience12

Additional Reading

Audience Targeting is a feature available in other web parts/areas of SharePoint as well. Click here to read more about this.

About Me

I’m Greg Zelfond, a U.S. based SharePoint consultant, and I provide affordable out-of-the-box SharePoint consulting, training, and configuration assistance to small and medium-sized businesses all over the world.

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