How to communicate through different distribution channels

Microsoft Viva Amplify allows you to send a message through multiple communication platforms to amplify your internal communication. Through Viva Amplify, you can create one message and modify it to fit different distribution channels like Outlook, SharePoint pages and news, Teams, and Viva Engage (coming soon). With so many options, it can be challenging to identify the best format for each channel. Identifying which formats work best can help improve engagement across your organization.

Outlook
SharePoint
Teams
Viva Engage

Outlook

Email is great for regularly scheduled, formal messages that can impact multiple groups of people. Emails are static messages that can’t be updated once sent, so it’s best to share content that doesn’t require constant updates and changes through email. Consider using email to communicate things like business updates, new employee introductions, and quick status updates.

Benefits of communicating through email

Email communication is scalable. Receivers of an email can share with anyone who has an email address, and your readers can engage by responding or forwarding the email to a broader audience. As a result, your email can be read by your direct recipients, and may also be seen by those who were forwarded the email. Emails also make great tools for record keeping and tracking valuable conversations.

When crafting an email, you can add links to other content like SharePoint pages and images to provide additional value.

Things to consider when communicating through email

Email messages can’t be unsent. If a mistake is made, the sender must send a follow-up email with intended corrections or recall and then resend the message with corrections.. It’s good practice to carefully proofread your email before sending to make sure all information is accurate.

Email messages are static, meaning that the Information cannot be removed or updated, and any information sent represents the most accurate information available at the time.

Emails can be filtered out of a reader’s inbox, causing messages to go ignored or unread.

Learn more about best practices when writing great emails with Outlook.

Best practices for communicating with Outlook

Tone of voice	Keep emails professional, informative, and friendly Consider your audience when crafting your message, and base your tone around the subject matter.
Length	Keep emails short and simple. Summarize your main point(s) in the first few sentences, starting with the most important.
Structure	If there's a clear action item for your audience, use the subject line to clearly state it. Identify who you're addressing in your greeting. Begin with your main message, followed by any additional information. Use proper spacing, numbering, or bulleting to separate key points. Keep your email signature short, professional, and free of graphics if possible.
Ways to increase engagement	Emphasize your call to action by adding it to the subject line, adding it to the first third of your email, listing it separately and easily visible, and bolding or highlighting it. Engage your audience by asking questions in your email.
Ways to measure engagement	Email engagement can be measured by tracking responses and completions of the call to action.

SharePoint

When communicating through SharePoint, messages can be crafted with dynamic content that can change often. Communicating in SharePoint allows you to incorporate page theming, web parts, and branded customization to create interactive elements that will increase opportunities for reader engagement.

Use a SharePoint page to communicate with your audience

A SharePoint page is a web page within a SharePoint site that uses a wide variety of elements like buttons, links, videos, images, and more to to draft and publish a message that can be updated and changed as time goes on (such as. important events or policy changes). Pages can be visited by anyone who has access to view the site the page is created on.

Learn more about creating a modern SharePoint page.

Use a SharePoint news post to communicate with your audience

A SharePoint news post is a SharePoint page that will display in the Viva Connections feed and on other pages that use news web part, including an organization’s hub page. You can easily convert any SharePoint page into a news post. News posts also allow you to target your information to specific demographics that have been categorized within your organization, such as a Marketing team, HR team, or Executive leadership. This audience targeting grants the author the ability to customize who sees their news post once it’s published.

Learn more about creating and sharing a SharePoint news post.

Learn more about audience targeting in SharePoint.

Benefits of communicating through SharePoint

Messages crafted in SharePoint can be easily changed or updated as often as needed. SharePoint also allows you to view page analytics and change permission settings. More importantly, SharePoint provides the user the ability to include call to actions using the Call to action web part, inspiring viewers to engage. Using dynamic web parts allow you to ask the reader to engage further by scrolling through pictures, interacting with charts, accessing external resources through links, and allowing readers to like and leave feedback comments for the SharePoint page. SharePoint also allows you to view page analytics and change permission settings to control who has access to your site.

Things to consider when communicating through SharePoint

Readers must have access to view the site where the page or news post is posted. Although users can request access to your site, their request will be pending until someone responds.

Best practices for communicating with SharePoint

Tone of voice	The tone of your communication through SharePoint should align with your company's brand guidance. Tone will also depend on the topic and goal of the communication. Typically, communication through SharePoint is friendly and informal. The tone of any SharePoint page or news post should match the tone of the SharePoint site the page or news post will be posted to.
Length	SharePoint Pages suit longer messages consisting of two or more topics. Consider breaking large messages into smaller, visually segmented sections on your SharePoint page to make the message digestible for your audience.
Structure	Utilize SharePoint page sections, templates, and web parts to encourage readers to interact with information through buttons, videos, image galleries, forms, document libraries, and more. Templates are a good foundation to start from. Use web parts to help generate engaging and interactive messages.
Ways to increase engagement	Make use of the web parts and text formatting to craft something easy to read and visually appealing. Include a page title that provides enough information about the subject and any call-to-action. Use the call-to-action web part to inspire users to act by clicking a link of your choosing.
Ways to measure engagement	You can use SharePoint page analytics to measure engagement.

Teams

Teams is great for quick communication that reaches members of your organization without interrupting their flow of work.

Benefits of communicating through Teams

Employees in many organizations spend most of their workday with Teams open. Consequently, when you communicate through Teams you're likely to reach people quickly since they don't have to open another app or page to view your post.

Things to consider when communicating through Teams

Depending on how your organization uses Teams, people may receive many Teams notifications every hour. It's important to make your Teams posts stand out so that they attract attention and don't get ignored.

Best practices for communicating with Teams

Tone of voice	Apply a friendly and casual tone when writing Teams messages. Consider using emojis to help illustrate emotions and add colorful, fun elements to your message.
Length	Keep Teams posts short and easy to scan. Summarize key points and link to additional information when needed.
Structure	Begin posts with your key point. Use the formatting tool to stylize text and add bullets for posts with multiple key points. Provide a short summary and link when referring to existing content (such as a SharePoint page or article). Consider adding character to your messages with the use of GIFs, illustrations and images provided by Teams.
Ways to increase engagement	Get readers to engage with your Teams post by asking questions or by encouraging them to like and comment under your post. Create polls or post questions so everyone can see and interact with the answers of other readers. Use @mentions to get the attention of specific individuals or groups of people.
Ways to measure engagement	Keep track of Teams reactions such as thumbs up. Take note of the conversations that occur on your post.

Viva Engage (coming soon)

Viva Engage is a communication platform that connects people across an organization by allowing them to build communities, share information, and engage employees, bringing people together to complete common goals and access information quickly. Viva Engage allows all members of an organization to ask questions publicly, loop in experts, and engage in social discourse on a variety of topics.

Organization leaders can use Viva Engage to drive culture and align an organization by hosting company-wide events through live and on-demand video. Communicators can also create social campaigns that can inform and ignite impactful conversations across an organization.

Benefits of communicating through Viva Engage

Viva Engage is a great communication platform for energizing and promoting collaboration among employees across an organization. Community members can openly collaborate, share ideas, information, and connect on common interests.

When communicating with employees through Viva Engage, communicators can easily encourage and measure engagement by….

Your organization can see how much engagement a particular topic generates by how many people have seen the post and give viewers a way to react to the content in the message either via comment, like, or reaction. Engagement can be further promoted by tagging individuals using @ and their name; notifying them of the ongoing conversation and encouraging them to participate.

Learn more about view counts.

Things to consider when communicating through Viva Engage

When communicating through Viva Engage, it’s important to keep information short and simple. Share links to longer forms of content and encourage users to interact by posing questions to the audience, encouraging readers to like, comment on, and share your Viva Engage post, and incorporating interactive elements like polls and surveys.

Keep the tone of your Viva Engage posts friendly, informative, and casual. Depending on organization size and communication scale, it may be helpful to have a moderator or two who can monitor posts and guide the conversation if it begins to get off topic, veer into a polarizing topic, or disable comments if needed.

Be respectful if critiquing another’s view, don’t cover topics that could shame or alienate others, and avoid polarizing topics like politics and religion. Don’t post anything that is private, confidential, or singles out a specific party in a negative way.

Tone of voice	Refer to your company’s brand guidance that is specific to your organization. The tone of your post should be friendly, informative, and casual. Be respectful if critiquing. Don’t cover topics that could shame or alienate your readers, and avoid polarizing topics like politics or religion. Don’t post anything that is private or confidential. Avoid singling out a specific party in a negative way.
Length	Keep posts short and easy to scan. Summarize key points and link to additional information when needed.
Structure	Begin posts with your key point. Provide a short summary and link when referring to existing content (such as a SharePoint page or article). Use images and video when needed. Use @mentions and hashtags to get the attention of specific individuals or groups of people.
Ways to increase engagement	Get readers to engage with your post by asking questions or by encouraging them to like, share, and leave comments. Encourage your members to invite other people to your Viva Engage community. Create polls or post questions so everyone can see and interact with the answers of other readers.
Ways to measure engagement	Take note of the conversations that occur on your post.