HoHoHo–use Viva Engage to create exciting engagements for everyone!

On the third day of Christmas, Microsoft gave to me...

better communication, an intranet in Teams and great experience for employees with Viva Engage.

We sparkle goodness within employees as we see how we can improve engagements and use Viva Engage to surprise and engage users. We use Storylines in Viva Engage to create exciting engagements for everyone.

Ho-Ho-Ho

Hybrid work creates a social gap within Teams and organizations. People feel less connected while they still enjoy the flexibility of remote work. Yammer and Viva Engage help people stay connected while working remote. The social community effect is essential to keep people in organizations happy and engaged. Imagine, during a lock down you were unable to get introduced to new colleagues, get a proper onboarding in your organization or to interact at a personal, social level. Yammer became one of the most used apps within Microsoft Teams, and suddenly we started many Yammer onboarding conversations with customers. The tighter integration within Viva Connections and with Viva Engage brought even more attention to my loved old-new Enterprise social tool.

What always triggered me about Yammer was the fact that it is a hierarchy free service where you can share knowledge, ask questions and communicate on an internal organizational level.

My passion around technology is – and always will be – to think about new functionalities in technology and how they can be used to improve things in our digital world. That was also true for Viva Engage and when we first heard about Stories and Storylines. That passion makes me a Viva Strategist among the Viva Explorers– look at services, understand them on all levels and understand their usecases.

On todays episode we will see how Stories and Storylines can be used within Viva Engage and what common use cases are (for now). I am very curious what people will bring up for this new functionality. Everyone I spoke about the usecases was happy with the added functionality. Stories and Storylines are not new to Social Media users. They are very popular in those platforms and widely used and adopted. This is a huge benefit for Viva Engage – user do not need to learn something new, they can use what they already know and love.

Our use case happens in Winter wonderland, where Santa organizes this years Christmas time deliveries. Since a couple of years they use Yammer to share knowledge within communities, like communities for the best presents for children, communities for work security where they share best practices how to navigate a sleigh and how not to fall through an chimney. This year, with Viva Engage stories and storylines Santa, the elfs and the reindeers started using stories to instant post short videos or beautiful pictures about their travel experiences around the world. The use case is simple: give an insight of your current experience, share short information, let people know what happens right now.

A Story does not necessary be related to a community, it can be something where people, regardless if leadership or anyone else share what’s currently important – maybe in a short period of time. To post a story you use Videos or pictures and post them. People who follow you can see them and even get a notification when you post something (if that feature is turned on). Ypu can also add Topics to the story and this makes it a great tool to be integrated.

Stories are something which can be consumed in very short time, if you share a video the limit is 180 sec. If it is pictures, it is one picture per story.

For me, stories are a great way to show authentic and engaging news. Some post might not fit in any community – but they can be interesting for people without bringing a lengthy post with it. The moment matters and this is true for social media as it is for an organization. Those stories can lead to engagement among people and also better knowledge of a person – as they are posted by a person within that persons context. In a story you can express yourself, share your personal thoughts in the context of your workplace.

Everyone in your organization is able to read your story and to follow you. You cannot restrict the audience. The content does not disappear from your storyline, as long as you decide to delete it.

People in your organization see the story among everything else in their feed.

How to enable stories and storylines?

Both functionalities are already here. A Yammer Administrator can enable them in the Yammer settings with Manage Storiylines. If you are in the early adopter fold like me, consider enabling the preview version. If you want to stay on the secure and stable side, stay in the current version.

How to start a story campaign in your organization?

Start posting stories. Talk to your most engaged community members that they do the same. Also: talk to leadership. Maybe they have not found a way yet to engage in a Yammer community. With Stories or storylines they can briefly share their experiences. This leads to a growing space around communities and a broader engagement around people. And Viva Engage is about the people.