Great events don’t just deliver information — they create moments people remember, return to, and build on.
In Week 4 of the Viva Engage Monday Masterclass Season 2, we wrapped up the series by focusing on how to design events that drive participation, trust, and momentum before, during, and after the moment. This session brought together product insights, customer examples, and practical guidance to help communicators and community leaders turn events into ongoing engagement engines.
If you’ve ever hosted an event that felt successful in the moment — but fizzled right after —or if you had questions on how to drive engagement beyond the event... this session was for you.
Why host events in Viva Engage?
Instead of treating events as one-off calendar invites, hosting them in Viva Engage creates a single, continuous experience. When you host events within a community, you target the audience for the event and discovery happens across your network.
- Before the event:
Build awareness and anticipation with announcements, pinned posts, and seeded questions.
- During the event:
Centralize participation through questions, discussions, reactions, and upvotes — all in one place.
- After the event:
Keep the conversation alive with recordings, recaps, followups, and searchable knowledge people can return to.
This approach helps events support broader goals like leadership visibility, culture building, learning, and community connection — not just attendance.
Event formats that fit your goals
The session walked through how different event formats support different outcomes, including:
- Broadcasts
Ideal for large, one-to-many moments like town halls or major announcements.
- Meetings
Better suited for learning sessions, office hours, and interactive discussions.
- Inperson or textonly events
Flexible options that still keep the conversation anchored in Engage.
Choosing the right format isn’t about feature checklists — it’s about optimizing for the experience you want attendees to have.
Before, during, after: designing the full event lifecycle
The session emphasized thinking about events as a connected journey, not a single time slot.
Before the event
- Promote early with clear value and calls to action
- Share teaser posts tied to key themes
- Seed conversation with openended questions
During the event
- Guide participation clearly
- Use moderation and upvotes intentionally
- Keep conversation focused in the event feed
After the event
- Share recordings and highlights
- Publish a recap that’s skimmable and actionable
- Continue answering questions and extending the discussion
This is where events shift from “done” to durable.
Customer spotlight: turning events into learning rhythms
We also highlighted how customers are using Viva Engage events to create repeatable learning moments, not just onetime sessions — from biweekly Copilot learning hours to office hours that build steady adoption momentum.
The common thread:
Events work best when they’re part of a rhythm, not a reaction.
Keep learning with the Viva Engage Masterclass
This session capped off Season 2 of the Viva Engage Monday Masterclass, which covered:
- Week 1: Beyond the basics – roles, moderation, and community configuration
- Week 2: AI-powered engagement in Viva Engage
- Week 3: Campaigns and storytelling
https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/customer-hub/monday-masterclass-your-guide-to-the-viva-engage-essentials/session-9/
- Week 4: Designing events employees remember
All session slides and recordings can be found here
Broadcast and meetings require Microsoft Teams, available as part of the suite or as a standalone. Learn more: Licensing updates extend access to advanced capabilities in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Places | Microsoft Community Hub"
Microsoft