Creating Relevant Viva Engage Communities: A Must-Have for Internal Communication
In today’s increasingly digital and hybrid workplace, knowing how to create Viva Engage communities that truly resonate with employees is a major asset for internal communication teams. These communities offer a unique opportunity to strengthen employee bonds, share key messages, and foster a sense of belonging.
But for a community to work, it must be relevant, engaging, and aligned with employees’ needs. In this article, we’ll share practical strategies for building and maintaining Viva Engage communities that actually make an impact.
What Makes a Viva Engage Community Relevant?
Understand Your Audience First
Before you create a community on Viva Engage, take time to understand who your employees are. Run surveys or focus groups to identify their interests, pain points, and communication preferences. Relevance starts with employee-centricity.
Align Your Community With Company Goals
A relevant Viva Engage community should support a clear organizational objective—whether it’s promoting innovation, reinforcing corporate culture, supporting well-being, or improving information flow. Communities work best when they align with your company’s bigger picture.
Embrace Diversity and Inclusion
Relevance also means inclusivity. Make sure your communities represent a wide range of departments, roles, and geographies. Cater to varied interests and make everyone feel they belong.
Boosting Engagement in Your Viva Engage Communities
Appoint Passionate Community Managers
Every successful Viva Engage community needs someone to lead it. Assign motivated, well-connected employees to moderate and animate discussions, ensuring that the community stays active and engaging.
Keep Content Fresh and Valuable
Post regularly and keep your content diverse—videos, polls, behind-the-scenes stories, and quick wins from other teams. Relevant content keeps the community alive and gives members a reason to return.
Use Recognition and Incentives to Encourage Participation
Gamification and employee recognition go a long way. Consider shout-outs, badges, or small challenges to keep momentum high. Active contributions should be acknowledged and celebrated.
Measure the Impact of Your Viva Engage Communities
Leverage the Right Analytics
Tracking the performance of your communities is essential for long-term success. In addition to Microsoft’s built-in analytics, a solution like Communication Insights can take you further. It gives you a centralized, cross-channel view of all your internal communication data.
With Communication Insights, you can:
- Identify trending topics and popular discussions within your Viva Engage communities
- Spot key influencers and track user activity (by country, department, role…)
- Analyze adoption rates by audience segments
- Use the best time to post feature to increase visibility and reach
- Automatically generate PowerPoint reports for your leadership team with selected KPIs
In short: no more data silos—just one unified dashboard that shows what’s working.
Create Feedback Loops to Keep Communities Evolving
Gather qualitative feedback directly from community members. What do they find helpful? What’s missing? Where could the experience improve? These insights will help you continuously adapt.
Iterate and Optimize Over Time
Use the data and feedback to refine your approach. Retire inactive groups, merge overlapping topics, and reframe themes as needed. The goal is to maintain relevant Viva Engage communities that evolve with your organization.
Conclusion: Strong Viva Engage Communities Drive Stronger Teams
Building relevant Viva Engage communities isn’t a one-off project—it’s an ongoing journey that starts with employee needs, thrives on consistent engagement, and grows with data-driven insights.
The results? A more connected, motivated, and informed workforce that actively contributes to your company’s success.
And with tools like Communication Insights, you can track the true impact of your efforts across all internal channels and continuously improve your strategy.
So, start now: create a Viva Engage community that brings your people closer together and fuels their drive for collaboration and growth.
About Tryane Analytics
Tryane Analytics was established in 2008 with the mission of empowering internal communications with actionable insights allowing them to be more efficient. Communication Insights is the latest and most comprehensive solution of Tryane Analytics. It is an all-in-one analytics solution to connect all your internal communication channels (email newsletter, intranet/digital workplace, enterprise social network) and access a holistic view of all your KPIs in one place.
Our cross-channel analytics platform helps internal communication professionals to be more efficient and gain valuable insights including two of our most popular features: Best Time to Post, which optimizes communication timing for maximum reach, and Monthly Reports that helps you provide accurate data effortlessly, in just one click. Increase your chances of reaching your target audience effectively and access comprehensive data to make informed decisions instantly. Streamline your performance tracking, adapt your strategies, and make data-driven decisions with Communication Insights:
Communication Insights by Tryane Analytics
Contact us today to learn more about our all-in-one analytics solution for internal communications. Get an understanding of the best ways to use your data to optimize your company’s internal communications and better engage employees.