How to use Slack like a pro

Slack is a widely used communication and collaboration platform, with over 600,000 organizations and 12 million daily active users in over 150 countries. It offers a range of features, including group chat, direct messaging, file sharing, and integrations with other tools that help teams communicate efficiently in a single place. 

Many companies and organizations use Slack to streamline real-time messaging and collaboration within their teams. As used efficiently,  Slack goes beyond being just a communication tool.

The top 4 advantages of using Slack efficiently

1. Fewer meetings: Using Slack efficiently, teams stay up-to-date on important information and changes. They reduce the need for in-person meetings and enhance overall productivity.  
2. Increased collaboration: Integrating Slack with various tools and platforms allows teams to collaborate more efficiently, hand off work smoothly, complete tasks faster, follow up on updates, and work on projects in real-time.
3. Improved organization: By dedicating channels for each need and using threads for specific conversations, teams can keep their communication organized and concentrated on specific topics or projects.
4. Enhanced productivity: Within the best scenario, teams can keep track of tasks, find subject matter experts, access updates, and work together more effectively and efficiently without leaving Slack. They can reduce the time and effort required to complete tasks and projects, leading to improved productivity. 

36 Slack tips and tricks for maximum efficiency

1. Organize your channels. Create channels for each project or team, and invite the relevant team members to join, remain focused, and minimize distractions.
2. Use message threads. If a conversation in a channel starts to veer off-topic, use threads to keep the main conversation organized and on track.
3. Set reminders about upcoming deadlines or tasks that need to be completed for yourself or others by using the reminders
4. Use "search" to quickly find past conversations or specific messages.
5. Integrate Slack with other tools. Keep context in Slack, and stop continuous tool switching by integrating your tool stack with Slack. Actioner lets you connect Slack with other tools, such as HubSpot or Zendesk, to keep track of everything you're doing without leaving Slack. 

6. Build Slack apps on your own. If you cannot find a solution that fits your needs, you can build your app; check out our tips and tricks for building Slack apps blog.
7. Use the “Do not disturb" feature: If you need to focus on a specific task, temporarily disable notifications from Slack. 
8. Star important conversations that you need to come back to later. Then you'll be able to keep track of your progress and prioritize tasks.
9. Send gifs instead of messages. Gifs help convey emotions or reactions that might be difficult to express with text alone and can add some fun and levity to conversations.

Actioner’s Utilities app allows you to send gifs to your colleagues with one click already connected to Giphy.

10. Learn keyboard shortcuts. Familiarize yourself with the keyboard shortcuts available in Slack to save time and be more efficient. For example, you can use the "/" key to access a list of commands or "shift + enter" to create a new line in a message.
11. Specify your status to let your team know when you are unavailable or when you are working on something specific. Let your team know if you are likely to be interrupted. Set your status and availability in Slack.
12. Pin important messages or conversations to the top of the channel, so they are easy to find later. Learn how to pin messages in Slack.
13. Create custom emojis to use in your Slack messages to add some personality and make your messages more fun and engaging. Add your emojis to Slack right away.
14. Use the “Mute” feature to stop notifications from channels or conversations irrelevant to your work.
15. Learn "Slash commands" to quickly perform tasks in Slack, such as setting reminders or finding information.
16. Attach files to your messages to share and access important documents and other files within your team.
17. Connect Slack to a project management tool like Jira or Trello to keep all your work in one place.
18. Use a translation app to communicate with your foreign customers, colleagues, and partners.

You can translate your messages quickly without leaving Slack using Actioner’s Utilities app.

19. Create and conduct polls within Slack or build one yourself. Make it easy to gather input and make decisions as a team.
20. Find a conversational ticketing solution for customer support: Connect Slack to a customer support tool like Intercom, Zendesk, or Help Scout to manage customer inquiries and support requests within Slack.
21. Utilize a code review integration like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket to keep track of code changes and code reviews within Slack.
22. Connect Slack with your CRM tools like HubSpot or Zoho CRM to automate and track sales operations within Slack. 
23. Customize your notifications in Slack to only receive notifications for the channels and conversations that are most important to you.
24. Use emojis in your messages to add some personality and make your messages more fun and engaging.
25. Use the "Multi-Channel Guests" feature: Invite an external who doesn’t have their own Slack workspace, to join specific channels in Slack, making it easy to collaborate with people outside your organization.
26. Use Slack connect if the person that you want to invite also uses Slack at their company; so that you can collaborate on your separate workspaces.

Understanding the difference between Multi-Channel Guests and Slack connect ➡️

27. Find integrations through the Slack app directory. Explore and use the many apps and integrations available in the Slack App Directory to customize Slack and make it work best for you and your team.
28. Customize your Slack experience, and change the look and feel of Slack by changing the theme and adding custom emojis, GIFs, and stickers.
29. Take advantage of Slackbot to set reminders or create custom responses to frequently asked questions. Start by setting reminders for your daily scrums 😉.
30. Share your screen with others during a huddle, call, or meeting.
31. Add Reacjis to respond quickly to messages with an emoji, making it easy to show your support or agreement. 
32. Mention your teammates to notify specific team members or groups of a message or conversation using “@”.
33. Save messages to mark important messages or conversations you want to return to later.
34. DM to have private conversations with team members or to discuss sensitive information.
35. DM yourself to collect notes for yourself and take a look back after. 

➡️Understand direct messages and start private conversations with your teammates or yourself.

36. Create custom commands to can perform specific tasks or provide information. Learn more about enabling interactivity with Slash commands.

Slack goes beyond messaging; it is where you can turn into a digital HQ, utilize all your tech stack, run all your workflows, develop solutions and collaborate with your team without leaving it!

💡Extra tip:  Join Slack communities. Joining a Slack community can be a valuable way to network, grow professionally and build relationships with others, learn new things, and collaborate on projects or interests. Find here the full list of 400 Slack communities ➡️