Transforming internal communications at Microsoft with Viva Amplify and Viva Engage

When our internal communicators needed to get the word out about Microsoft 365 Copilot, they turned to Microsoft Viva Amplify, our new product that would allow them to do so quickly, across many internal channels at once.

Viva Amplify, with its “write once, publish everywhere” approach, allows our internal communicators to reach employees easily in Microsoft Viva Engage and other distribution channels. It also gives them the ability to monitor the effectiveness of their outreach, so they know how well they’re reaching people in each channel they use. (Read our story on deploying Amplify internally at Microsoft here.)

“People are excited about the ability to create a publication in one place and send it to many channels at once with very limited rework needed,” says Sam Crewdson, a principal program manager in Microsoft Digital, the company’s internal IT organization. “That they also get rich, consolidated analytics across all of those channels; it really is a powerful one-two punch.”

The Viva Amplify product team recently added Viva Engage as a distribution channel internally at Microsoft, something communicators from across the company were waiting for (it will soon be added to Amplify for external customers as well).

“Many were like, ‘This is cool, but I really want Viva Engage,’” says Sarah Lundy, a senior content program manager on the IT communications team in Microsoft Digital. “I think some were waiting for that key channel because Viva Engage is so key to our communication efforts at Microsoft.”

Communicating with Viva Amplify to Viva Engage

Victoria Martinez and Melissa Cafiero, both senior content program managers in Microsoft Digital, use Viva Engage and Viva Amplify to communicate about Microsoft 365 Copilot, which rolled out across the company earlier this calendar year. They started small last year, with a private preview of Copilot for a limited number of employees. They created a Viva Engage community to share news and updates among this limited group.

Viva Engage was added to Viva Amplify in June. If it had been available when the Copilot private preview began, the communications team estimates they would have been able to do even more. For example, they could have easily replicated email content and customized it for Viva Engage, their top internal communications channel.

“Now that Viva Amplify supports Viva Engage, we’re using it all the time for posting Copilot promotional materials, sending helpful tips and links to live trainings,” Martinez says.

This feature has been well received by communicators across the company.

“Viva Engage users were happy to add Amplify to their toolbox,” Crewdson says. “It’s been very successful.”

Communicating about Copilot with Viva Amplify

If you want to harness the power of Viva Amplify to communicate internally about Copilot, you can take advantage of Martinez and Cafiero’s hard work. They created a pre-built campaign that’s available in Viva Amplify, called the Copilot Deployment Kit. To access it, select the banner in Viva Amplify labeled “Get started quickly with even more pre-built campaigns.”

“Viva Amplify is a key tool for companies looking to land Copilot and get value for the licenses they’ve bought for their employees,” Lundy says. “You can run social campaigns, send launch communications, publish SharePoint training materials—all through Viva Amplify.”

Besides Viva Engage, Viva Amplify has many powerful features that enable communicators to reach more users effectively. With Viva Amplify, communicators can build a single communication to start with, then send it to multiple channels: email, SharePoint, blog posts, Teams, and, of course, Engage.

“We can do it all in Amplify, which makes it really easy and seamless,” Cafiero says. “Also, it promotes consistency and cohesiveness in communications.”

You can customize your communications for each channel by adjusting voice and tone.

“Each channel’s a little different,” Cafiero says. “A blog might be more formal. You can be shorter and snappier on Engage because it’s a social channel.”

Another powerful feature of Viva Amplify is centralized data.

“If a communicator wanted to measure success before Viva Amplify, they would have to go to many different places, including third-party tools,” Crewdson says. “Now you can get consolidated analytics across all those endpoints in a single place, represented in a consistent way.”

The time-saving benefits of Viva Amplify in both creating and tracking communications are significant. Martinez and Cafiero estimate they’ve experienced a savings of 25% in drafting communications, and 50–75% in tracking metrics.

Viva Amplify also enables sharing responsibilities. Multiple people can contribute to a communication and review it, and the people who author the communication don’t have to be the ones to publish it. This feature was helpful to Lundy when a long-scheduled trip conflicted with a release date.

“I was able to leave my coworker with everything ready to go,” Lundy says. “I could prep it all for her and she could publish when she got the word that it was time.”

The future of communicating with Viva Amplify and Viva Engage

Lundy sees Viva Engage as the future of how people will consume information at work. It’s a more social way of communicating, with two-way dialog and opportunities to engage informally and directly with leadership. 

There’s already been an increase in adoption of Viva Amplify since adding Viva Engage, including more people who aren’t professional communicators by job title. For example, program managers are also using it.

“We’re starting to see a hockey-stick shaped uptick in adoption and there’s lots of good stuff to come,” Crewdson says. “The next six to twelve months are going to be really exciting. We’re going to bring the power of Copilot to Viva Amplify. It will help you create concise, effective content. But more, this fall we’re going to release AI capabilities around design ideas. So not only will it help you write great copy, but it’s going to look great too.”

Viva Amplify will also provide even more help with analysis.

“In the future, there’s so much opportunity to provide deeper insights,” Lundy says. “It can tell us, ‘When you send a shorter communication at 7:00 AM, it performs better than longer emails.’”

The value of these tactical improvements is that Viva Amplify will be able to support communicators in their expanded roles.

“We’re not just sending an email about the latest re-org,” Lundy says. “There are elements of change management, leadership messaging, and crisis management. Viva Amplify is beginning to support communicators by allowing them to focus on the big-picture strategy: how their leader is positioned, how employees adopt the right changes at the company. It has the power to free up communicators for the strategic role they often play.”