Boost SharePoint news from organization news sites

How boosted news works

Boosted news posts display with a lightning bolt icon, except in the Viva Connections Feed web part and in the Viva Connections Feed mobile experience, which will display the word boosted at the top of the post instead.

When you boost a SharePoint news post, the news post will prominently display in the Viva Connections Feed, the Feed web part for Viva Connections, in the Top news card on the Viva Connections Dashboard, and in the SharePoint app bar. 

Boosted news will be in a prominent position in the experiences listed above for up to 4 days. News boost is the most effective when applied to organizational news posts close to the time of publishing. In the Feed for Viva Connections web part, news posts from organizational news sites up to 7 days from the post date will take precedence over older boosted News that has not yet reached the expiration. This can prevent boosted news from displaying prominently to end-users.

How to boost a SharePoint news post

1. From your organizational news site, open the published news post you want to boost. News posts can be found by navigating to Settings > Site contents > Site pages.

2. From the command bar at the top, select Boost.
   

3. In the panel on the right, make sure the toggle for Boost is set to On.
   

4. Under Boost until, select a date by which you want the news post to stop being boosted.

5. If you have boosted multiple news posts, you can indicate the order in which they should appear under Boost in this order.Just drag or use the up and down arrows to move the news posts in the boost order you want.

How to display promoted news in the News card on the Viva Connections dashboard

Add the News card to the Viva Connections Dashboard to promote news from a variety of sources that you wish to prominently display. If you choose any news posts that have been boosted, they will display in the News card for the duration of the boost period.

1. From your SharePoint home site, select the Settings gear at the top-right of the page.

2. Select Manage Viva Connections to bring up the properties pane.

3. Select View Dashboard. 

4. The dashboard for your SharePoint home site will open. Select edit in the upper-right of the screen.

5. Select + Add a card.

6. Select the News card, then select the edit pencil to the left of the card.

7. The properties pane for the News card will appear. Add a title and select a card size. 

8. To target your card to specific audiences (i.e. only audiences you specify will see the card in the dashboard), select one or more groups to target. Refer to this article for more information on Audience targeting.  

9. For a news source, select one of the following options:

   • Boosted posts: Will display any SharePoint news post that has been boosted from the organization's news sites only. The word "Boosted" will display at the top of the card.  

   • From this site: Pulls news from the hub site that the current site is a part of.

   • From all sites in this hub: Pulls news from all sites within your SharePoint hub.

   • Select sites: Pulls news from one or more individual sites (if selected, a list of sites associated with your SharePoint hub will display).

   • Recommended for current user: will display news posts for the current user from people the user works with; managers in the chain of people the user works with, mapped against the user's own chain of management and connections; the user's top 20 followed sites; and the user's frequently visited sites.

     

10. When finished, close the properties pane. 

Learn more

Create and share SharePoint news

Create an organizational news site in SharePoint

Create or edit a Viva Connections Dashboard