First announced by Microsoft over a year ago, Viva Amplify is the latest module to be launched in the Microsoft Viva suite. It’s one of the platform’s tools designed to transform communications – but how does it do this? Read our blog to discover what you can do to enhance your internal communications with tools in Microsoft Viva.
With the change in how we work in recent years, calls to improve employee communications have risen – and not without cause. It can be difficult to engage a workforce when they are located across multiple offices, or even entirely remote. However, according to Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, engaged employees are 46% more likely to see their organisations as strong communicators. It’s critical to nail down your communications strategy in order to keep your people engaged.
The challenge lies in how you can do this – what are the internal comms tools that can help you and how can you get the most out of them?
A hub for internal comms
With a whole host of internal comms tools available at your disposal, choosing the right ones and employing the right approach to using them is critical.
Microsoft’s Digital Employee Experience corporate vice president Nathalie D’Hers highlights the importance of strong messaging in Microsoft’s blog: “Getting communications right is critical. It fosters collaboration, empowers individuals and drives business growth.
“At Microsoft, we recognise that getting communications right is not just a necessary skill, but a strategic advantage. It enables us to align our teams, engage our customers and, ultimately, deliver innovative solutions that transform people’s lives.”
The new app is part of the Microsoft Viva employee experience platform, which hosts a growing number of modules bringing together communications, learning, knowledge and insights to Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft first launched Viva to tackle the challenge of employee experience and engagement – and the suite of modules available has rapidly grown across many functions. Its communications tools include Viva Connections, Viva Engage, formerly known as Yammer, and the latest addition of Viva Amplify. This offers an extensive toolkit for internal comms managers, whether that is to connect your people, allow them to build meaningful relationships, share knowledge or create impactful messages.
What is Microsoft Viva Amplify?
Viva Amplify is a multi-channel workforce communications hub, enabling teams and leaders to elevate their message and energise their people. Microsoft has released this latest tool to help organisations transform the way they execute internal comms, enabling them to reach and engage their people in a more meaningful way.
It helps corporate communicators create and manage campaigns, add reviews and schedule publications in a way that will make their campaigns reach their people more successfully. It offers a streamlined, centralised hub for internal communicators to do their work in one place.
What can you do with Viva Amplify?
With Microsoft Viva Amplify , internal communications managers can:
- Centralise the comms process and manage the lifecycle of various campaigns from a single view
- Get artificial intelligence-powered guidance on crafting messages that resonate with the audience
- Compile guidance to keep everyone aligned with briefs on objectives, key messages and tone
- Publish to multiple channels simultaneously with automatic reformatting across Outlook, Teams and SharePoint
- Track the results of campaigns with metrics on engagement, sentiment and reach
How can you get Viva Amplify?
Microsoft Viva Amplify is available now as part of the Microsoft Viva Suite or Microsoft Viva Employee Communications and Communities. Internal communicators with either of these licences can get started creating campaigns and planning communications with Viva Amplify. Get in touch with our modern work experts to find out more about pricing and licensing options available to you.
More communication tools from Microsoft Viva
Microsoft Viva’s Employee Communications and Communities includes three modules: Connections, Engage and Amplify. Having covered Amplify, let’s look at the other two.
Viva Connections
Viva Connections brings your organisation’s internal resources into Microsoft Teams, making it easier to share, collaborate, and chat all in one place. It aggregates content from Microsoft 365 and other tools in a central hub within Microsoft Teams. It enables your people to stay up to date on company news, events and announcements with a curated newsfeed based on the employee’s role, department and interests.
Viva Engage
Viva Engage is designed to help organisations create a culture of inclusion by inviting meaningful conversations and encouraging employees to contribute ideas and share views. Formerly known as Yammer, it connects people across working groups and business silos, harnessing the power of diverse experiences and perspectives to solve problems, amplify best practices, and accelerate innovation.
Modern SharePoint intranet
While these Microsoft Viva modules are all integrated with Microsoft Teams, another key tool in an internal communicator’s toolbox is an intranet. This allows for information and knowledge to be shared easily across your entire organisation.
SharePoint is Microsoft’s answer to the modern intranet. This web-based collaboration and document management platform allows you to create internal websites, share news and important documents. It’s part of the Microsoft 365 suite and is natively integrated with its other apps like Outlook, Teams and OneDrive.
Fresh, our answer to a modern SharePoint intranet, allows you to create a world-class hub bringing Microsoft 365 channels together to form a one-stop shop for company news, collaboration and information for everyone to access.
Find out how you can bring your SharePoint intranet to life with Fresh.
How does Microsoft Viva work with SharePoint?
As a platform that supports employee engagement, learning and wellbeing, Microsoft Viva is a perfect companion to SharePoint for internal communicators.
Viva Connections allows organisations to access their SharePoint intranet within Teams, enabling employees to view all relevant content in one place. This helps to foster a culture where people and teams are empowered to be their best wherever they are.
To create a cohesive experience between the desktop and mobile apps, you can create a SharePoint home site for Viva Connections. This site can be used as a centralised space to share and store information and documents. It also allows for top-down dissemination of information, making it easy for leaders to send important company-wide updates.
Finding the right internal comms tools for your organisation
Every organisation is unique, with unique people at the heart of it. Engaging those people is key to your success – but it’s not as simple as sharing the latest developments with them. You need to find the tools to modernise how you communicate with your people and create space to foster connections.
Do you want to improve employee engagement, increase productivity, or enhance collaboration? Think about your goals and your audience, and ensure the tools you choose align with these needs.
