The document provides an overview and breakdown of Microsoft's online community structure. It summarizes that the Microsoft Tech Community comprises 99 product communities with over 500 spaces within each community. It also notes that the community appears to be at the peak of maturity but is struggling with rapid growth and competing with other legacy Microsoft communities for members.

1. M I C R O S O F T
C O M M U N I T Y
B R E A K DO W N
By Richard Millington,
www.feverbee.com

2. O V E R V I E W A N D
S T R U C T U R E

3. 3
MICROSOFT COMMUNITIES
ANSWERS
(custom platform)
TECHCOMMUNITY
(Khoros/Lithium)
DEVELOPER
NETWORK
(unsure -
answerhubs?)
TECHNET
(unsure -
answerhubs?)
99 PRODUCT
COMMUNITIES
500+ SPACES WITHIN
EACH COMMUNITY
18 PRODUCT
COMMUNITIES
DEVELOPERS IT PROS
Discussion and best
practices on
Microsoft
Technologies
Destination for
Microsoft resources
for developers and
testers
Documentation and
learning for IT
professionals
Support community
for customers/end-
users
IT PROS
CUSTOMERS/END-
USERS
99 PRODUCT
COMMUNITIES
FEEDBACK
COMMUNITIES
(UserVoice)
IT PROS / END
USERS
Dozens of isolated
product-specific
feedback
communities
OVERVIEW BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

4. 4
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYOVERVIEW
DESCRIPTION
PLATFORM Khoros/Lithium
CATEGORY Customer community
TYPE(s) Support, success
LAUNCHED 2016 (previously a Yammer community)
MEMBERSHIP 341,988 (3rd June, 2019)
NEW REGISTRATIONS PER DAY (EST) 500 to 600*
CONVERSATIONS PER DAY 1523*
POSTS PER DAY (EST) 694*
* per day numbers calculated by comparing current totals to past totals via archive.org and averaging results

5. 5
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYSTRUCTURE
SECTION DESCRIPTION
Q&A
For members to ask questions and get help. The ‘community’ is
comprised of 99 communities. These break down to 500 sub-spaces
for each community.
IDEAS
Members can submit ideas by UserVoice and community ideas via
TechCommunity.
EVENTS
Members can learn about and directly register for events on 3rd-party
platforms.
BLOG Employees can share product and community updates
OTHER Social media, GitHub, and other related sites.

6. 6
The Microsoft Tech Community
comprises of 70 distinct product and
service categories and 16 ‘solution’
based communities (and seemingly a
handful of private communities)
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYSTRUCTURE

7. 7
Each community comprises of ‘multiple
spaces’ focused on particular aspects of
the product or unique conversation
strands.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYSTRUCTURE

8. 8
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYFEATURES
PLATFORM FEATURE
FORUMS / CONVERSATIONS
Q&A
BLOGS
TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE BASE
GAMIFICATION
CROWDSOURCED IDEAS
VALUE ANALYTICS
GROUPS
RATINGS AND REVIEWS
CONTESTS
MEDIA

9. 9
Microsoft’s community
appears to be at the peak of
the maturity phase of the
community lifecycle
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYLIFECYCLE

10. 10
The community seems to be competing with other
highly popular legacy communities for the same
members.
Ideally, TechNet/MSDN/Uservoice would be migrated
into this new community. However, the huge popularity
of these older communities suggest this would be
difficult to do.
We can also see the number of conversations far exceeds
posts. If this data is accurate (big if), the community has a
problem ensuring most posts receive a response.
However, the sheer level of activity across 99
communities also suggests strong internal support and
staff engagement.
STRUGGLING TO HANDLE RAPID GROWTH
SUMMARY
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYOVERVIEW

11. C O M M U N I T Y D E S I G N

12. 12
In a community of this size, the
search box should be clear and
in the centre of the screen.
Most people want answers.
Pretty good way to show both the
latest blog posts alongside
community activity above this
fold line.
I’m skeptical member of the
week really adds anything to
the community. Is this the
most active? Best
contributions? etc.. ?
Needs a much clearer
registration and sign in
link here
Would recommend reducing
the height of the boxes by half
and removing ‘Microsoft
Build’. Doesn’t appear to be a
critical part of the community
The community clearly
articulates its purpose, has
a get started area for
newcomers and then an
unnecessary ‘learn more’
area)
In-line answers take up a
lot of space and make it
harder for people to
quickly scroll. Far too
much wasted space
here.
Showing latest activity
above the fold is great. But
high volume means many
visitors only see discussions
with no user metrics. Might
remove these.

13. 13
Without the expanded
snippets of conversations
here (and first replies), it
would be possible to
squeeze a lot more
discussions onto the
homepage for members to
see.
Any value of infinite scroll
here? The site feels sluggish/
slow.
Wouldn’t put ‘users online’
above popular labels. Might
consider moving popular
labels to the top of the
page in place of the three
top boxes to make it easier
for members to browse.

14. 14
Moving the search to the top of the
page is a really smart move on
mobile.
Would remove the banner and
replace it with a single registration/
sign-in box.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Would remove these huge boxes
which forces the majority of
members to scroll down to find
what they want.
Activity is pushed off the page
with a lot of tiny text which
isn’t likely to be useful to
mobile visitors. Would remove
this so the latest activity
appears above the fold.

15. 15
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
Search stays
constant at the
top of the page as
members scroll
down
Great display of blog posts.
Even better if you can
swipe to see the next post.
Could remove the image
for simplicity.
Showing expanded
content makes more
sense here. Would
use this screen as the
homepage for
mobile visitors.

16. 16
MICROSOFT’S WEB DESIGN BENCHMARKS
ASTHETICS
NEWCOMERS
ACTIVITY DISPLAY
MOBILE
NAVIGATION
CALLS TO ACTION
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

17. S E A R C H

18. 18
The Microsoft Tech Community
uses Lithium’s default search
capability which enables
members to search for
information from posts, ideas,
blogs, and the tribal knowledge
base.
The results appear to be
prioritised by 1) Relevancy to
key terms 2) Accepted solution
3) Date and 4) Likes. This is a
good standard.
Community would benefit from a unified
search option which retrieved information
from the rest of the site alongside search
results. This ignores all existing documentation.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

19. O N B O A R D I N G
B E N C H M A R K S

20. 20
The communities are very
difficult to find from the
core Microsoft site. Most
links to the community were
several clicks deep and
buried within more specific
product pages.
However, we believe the
number of new members is
too high for solely search
results and we thus suspect
referral traffic from other
Microsoft properties to
account for a significant
portion of visitors.

21. 21
ONBOARDING
Most of the 99 communities
can be found at the bottom
of individual product pages.
This is not ideal, but better
than not appearing on the
page at all.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

22. 22
Like many brands which requires
extensive product documentation, the
community must compete with
documentation to appear highly in
search results. There is likely scope to
improve and prioritise how discussions
appear in search results to attract more
traffic and differentiate from product
information. We suspect the community
attracts the long-tail of search results
which documentation can’t easily cover.
ONBOARDING

23. 23
To join you need to give the
community access to your Microsoft
account. This is a little clumsy, but
probably understandable.
The Microsoft community uses single
sign on (you can also use your Skype
details).
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

24. 24
Microsoft does the right thing
here. When members joined
they are immediately asked to
highlight the areas which most
interest them. This ensures
members aren’t overwhelmed
with irrelevant information. This
lists the most popular
communities at the top.
This is the best place to set your
profile username. Asks for as
little information as possible.
Code of conduct is useful, but
might be better to have this as
it’s own page so people don’t
easily jump past it.

25. 25
This is a wasted opportunity to
set a specific action for
members to take after they join.
Member activity feed is populated
with relevant content based upon
the content members decided to
follow. This is ideal for
communities where members are
likely to use multiple products.
There is no further onboarding or automation
rules here to better engage newcomers within
the community. An email campaign or a clear
next step would be useful.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
ONBOARDING

26. 26
MICROSOFT’S ONBOARDING BENCHMARKS
REGISTRATION
POST REGISTRATION
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
PRE-REGISTRATION
ONBOARDING BENCHMARKS BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

27. E N G A G E M E N T
B E N C H M A R K S

28. 28
At the core of engagement in
Microsoft communities is a Facebook
wall-like structure as opposed to a
typical forum community. Members
respond by entering their replies
directly in the box provided beneath
previous discussions. The benefit is it
makes participating easier for casual
browsers. The downside is it takes up
space and members might reply
without reading the entire topic.
Would remove the option to reply at
this level because of that.
Good activity stat
and follow option.
The search bar needs to
be moved to the banner.
It’s far too small here.
All three boxes here are
pretty much ideal and
relevant to the situation.
We really like this page
layout. It’s not
aesthetically pleasing,
but it functions
perfectly for a primarily
tech audience.
Really like seeing the
top-liked comments.
Given the ‘Facebook-wall’
style of posts, it might be
simpler to adopt the open
text box at the top of the
page for members who
want to ask a question.

29. 29
Clean interface and
functionality.
This responder is an MVP, but
this isn’t clear from this
response. Member status
should appear alongside their
responses here. This helps
members to validate the
expertise in the response.
Love seeing the related
conversations here. Very
useful.
Might benefit from replacing ‘like’
with ‘I have the question too’

30. 30
Love this display of the progress of
each idea. Easy to see where each
idea is leading towards, where
members can help, and what the
process looks like.
Sorting by idea status probably is the best
default given the ideas which appear here.
It’s not clear what ‘completed’
means. Does this mean the idea has
been implemented or something
else?
The idea section feels under-
utilised and hidden within the
community platform with a
minuscule number of ideas
compared with the incredible
volume of members in this
community.
This might be a better display
of ideas in the community
than sorting by status.

31. 31
Perhaps one reason the
default idea area is not
widely utilised is
communities also link to
their own feedback/
ideas area on Uservoice -
a completely different
platform.
Members can post ideas directly to Uservoice via a pop-up box which appears in the community. It’s strange to invest in
having the ideas section while still directly a large volume of traffic to a completely different engagement experience.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITYFEEDBACK

32. 32
The Uservoice
community has a high
level of engagement,
Thousands of items of
feedback and new idea
updates. It’s strange to
split the community
across an additional
challenge.
Most links point back to the
Lithium-hosted community.

33. 33
This is one of 99 communities, but it
appears engaging enough to visit
frequently. It’s regularly updated.
Perhaps the only challenge is limited
visibility of the content on the
community homepage.
The Microsoft TechCommunity
excels in engaging staff members
to create a huge amount of
content for members. The number
of staff members who participate
in communities and the volume of
content they create suggests
widespread support for the
community internally.
All the contributions to the blog
current come from Microsoft
employees. It may be valuable to
enable trusted members to share
their best advice as well. This is
motivating and helps scale the
community. This may enable staff to
filter for quality instead of creating
all the contributions personally.

34. 34
TITLE TEXT
The Microsoft TechCommunity
provides an excellent place for
leaders of different groups to list
and promote their own events.
Good focus on the biggest
upcoming event.
A unique innovation is hosting a ‘speakers’
directory. This is a novel concept not seen in
most other communities which allows potential
experts and others to promote themselves.
This message is strangely
almost an exact replicate
of the one on the left
hand side. It’s an odd
oversight.
Showing the most popular
speakers is a powerful way to
attract and keep top talent in
the ecosystem.
The Microsoft Tech community
really does a great job
showcasing events by popularity.

35. 35
TITLE TEXT
Most events listed here are not
hosted by Microsoft but by
members of the community
(or the broader ecosystem.
Might be better to ensure
they’re well categorised on
each sub-community rather
than as their own page here.

36. 36
EVENTS
The event page on the
community only
serves as the front
door. These register
links typically take
members to Meetup /
Eventbrite registration
pages.
The community
becomes a platform for
all relevant groups to
publish and promote
their own event. Very
few communities have
achieved this.
This image doesn’t
really add anything to
the group and could
probably be removed.
Ideally, this page would show how many
members are attending. However, given the
registration process is not handled within the
community, this is difficult to accomplish.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

37. 37
EVENTS
Providing anyone hosting an
event in the ecosystem with
an easy way to search for
speakers by product or
location is an idea which has
huge potential (but seems
under-utilised here)
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

38. 38
ENGAGEMENT BENCHMARKS
ACTIVITY
FRIENDLINESS
KNOWLEDGE
RESPONSE/RESOLUTION
EASE OF ENGAGEMENT
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
ENGAGEMENT BENCHMARKS BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

39. M V P /
S U P E R U S E R
P R O G R A M

40. 40
Microsoft has perhaps the most
successful and best supported
MVP program many company.
The MVP program has its
subdomain featured
prominently.
Microsoft has over 3000 MVPs.
However, it’s unclear how many
of these are active.
The search directly to find the
top experts by country/region is a
useful touch.
This is a five-day event for
MVPs at company
headquarters. Most MVP
programs have a single-
data event. It’s clearly a
big deal.
it’s always good to let
members nominate
people to become MVPs
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

41. 41
Each MVP has a distinct
bio. The bios are clear and
simple enough which
clearly list a member’s
expertise.
In global
communities
showing the
languages
members speak
is a useful
addition

42. 42
Two contribution areas is
interesting. This might be
unique to Microsoft.
This is where the community
really shines. It pulls in multiple
behaviours both inside and
outside of a forum-based
community into a single stream.
This shows exactly how each
member has helped the
community. This clearly shows
speaking at conferences, forum
participation, hosting user
groups, blog posts etc…

43. 43
Perhaps the most remarkable
aspect of the entire program is
there is no outlined reward
scheme. As shown in the copy,
it’s simply a way of ‘showing
thanks’ to members. This
demonstrates that MVPs don’t
need rewards, they need to feel
they have an impact, have some
asset of exclusive information,
and a sprinkle of status.

44. 44
MICROSOFT SUPERUSER PROGRAM
BENCHMARKS
DOCUMENTATION
ONBOARDING / TRAINING
REWARDS/INCENTIVES
STRUCTURE AND ROLES
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
PERMISSIONS/ACCESS
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

45. G A M I F I C A T I O N

46. 46
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY
The stats list is interesting.
Posts,, likes, and best
responses are standard on
Lithium. But we haven’t seen
subscriptions often before.
Color change suggests a high-
profile member.
Community seems to have a
relatively small number of
levels with unimaginative
names and confusing
hierarchy. These include visitor,
occasional visitor, frequent
visitor, contributor, trusted
contributor, respected
contributor, MVP, ‘Microsoft’
etc…
Is trusted better than
respected? Levels could be
greatly improved. Members
seem to get ‘stuck’ on the
highest level.
The community has fewer
achievements members can
earn that other
communities. It also tends to
mix important badges
(member of the week) with
unimportant badges (5
consecutive days visiting).
Good to see user levels appear
high up on the member profile

47. 47
Too many of these badges are
next to meaningless and fails
to distinguish really great
contributions the member
should aspire to from the rest.

48. 48
Each of the 99 communities
has a list of top contributors.
However these are buried too
far below the fold on the
homepage of each community
to be meaningful (or seen) to
and by most members.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

49. 49
GAMIFICATION
Giving new ranks to members who haven’t made a
contribution (while claiming they have) is a bad idea and
devalues the entire system. Giving ranks by the number of
visits members have made is also a bad idea.
(and no-one wants emails from ‘Role Admin’)
A problem with many gamification notification
systems is they show up as spam in gmail.
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

50. 50
MICROSOFT GAMIFICATION BENCHMARKS
LEVELS
BADGES
REPUTATION
MISSIONS
World
ClassGoodBad Ok
GETTING STARTED
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

51. O V E R A L L
B E N C H M A R K S

52. OVERALL BENCHMARKS
52
ENGAGEMENT
MVP / SUPERUSERS
GAMIFICATION
ONBOARDING
D
COMMUNITY DESIGN
C B A
MEMBER PROFILES
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY

53. 53
The community has a consistently high level of engagement, benefits from a terrific MVP program, and has a design that
enables a community of this size and complexity to work. However it also suffers from poor gamification and onboarding
experiences - both of which should be improved.
• Develop a communications plan to ensure all IT pros and developers are focused on a single platform beginning with
TechNet and then the Microsoft Developer network.
• Use the ideation functionality provided by Lithium to replace that used by Uservoice.
• Improve the post-registration experience of community members to have a longer automation journey helping members
make world-class contributions to the community.
• Remove the worthless gamification badges and focus them on big achievements. Revamp levels to ensure they are more
of them and they have a clear hierarchy of value
• Develop a system to flag unanswered conversations and ensure a large group of members in each community are
dedicated and rewarded for tackling these.
NEEDS A CLEAR STRUCTURE
COMMUNITY RATING: B
BREAKDOWN OF MICROSOFT’S ONLINE COMMUNITY