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Digital communication tools like Slack are fast becoming the lynchpin of organisations across the globe.
As more people choose to work remotely, Slack enables people to feel connected despite not being in the same physical space.
Plus, with innovation and creativity high on the agenda for most organisations, Slack provides an important space for people to collaborate and share ideas.
At Equinet, we’d be lost without it.
Slack has been a staple of our office culture since long before I joined the company just over two years ago. "I'll Slack you" is part of our language.
We have channels dedicated to each of our clients where we can share and discuss ideas, check on the status of a task, and quickly solve any problems that arise.
On top of this, we have a general chat, where people can share if they are working from home or anything else to do with the day-to-day, and a random chat, where we may share funny articles or photos of what we’ve been up to outside of work. Plus we have a social channel, where we can plan and discuss upcoming company events and get-togethers.
Our reliance on Slack is what made me stop and read this HubSpot article, with 25 handy Slack hacks to help companies get the most out of its functionality.
Here are just a few of those that I think are really useful.
Conduct advanced searches
I’ve never quite got on with the Slack search function - and turns out I’ve been using it all wrong. With the Slack assisted search function, there are a whole load of different modifiers you can use to narrow your search.
E.g. -
- in:channelname - searches only the messages/files in a specific channel
- from:username - searches only messages/files sent from a specific person
- has:star - pulls messages you’ve starred
- before:yesterday - searches for messages sent yesterday
Create a to-do list
By setting a Slackbot reminder you can keep track of what you need to get done.
All you have to do is enter /remind into the text box, followed by your task. You can even schedule a reminder for a specific time. To view your reminders, you just use the command /remind list.
Edit messages you’ve already sent
Sometimes feel like you didn’t quite get your message across in the right way? The good news is you can edit messages you’ve already sent.
Either hover over the message and select the three dots on the right, or if you’ve just this instant sent your message, you can press the up arrow key to edit it right away.
Jump to any conversation in seconds
This is super handy when you have multiple channels. To quickly and easily switch from one channel to another, simply hit ⌘ + K (Mac) or Ctrl + K (Windows and Linux). A popup will appear where you can begin typing the name of the channel or person you watch to switch to.
Host a video call
Slack isn’t just for instant messaging. You can also use it for video calling. Just go to a thread you’d like to chat with and click on the phone near the Slack search bar.
Use emoji reactions to take a quick poll
At Equinet, every now and then we use a poll, whether to decide on a restaurant for the next team social or to work out who fancies the pub after work on a Friday night. But I’m delighted to learn that we can do these polls using only emojis!
Check out this example from BetterCloud. Today is #WorldEmojiDay so what better time to test this out!
What other features do you find most useful?
Slack me your ideas...
A few years ago, the HubSpot team made the switch to Slack (one of the hottest real-time messaging apps on the market).
Initially, it was hard to get used to uttering phrases like "Just Slack me" or "We were Slacking" in passing. But once we got more comfortable with the platform, we started to realize just how powerful it really is.
The more we used Slack, the better our discoveries got -- GIFs, reminders, files ... they were all just a click or two away.
But that's just the thing: Slack is capable of so much that it's hard to uncover what features you really should be using. To help, we put together some of the best Slack hacks below. From creating to-do lists to customizing your theme, these pro tips are worth showing off to your team.
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/slack-tips?utm_campaign=M
