Media training 101 for small businesses

-
Image
Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr
1 comment

How to Create Custom Emoji in Slack

-

Emoji are core to every workflow—at least, they're core to any workflow worth having. But your company has its own unique culture, and that culture deserves its own emoji. Happily Slack makes it easy to add your own.

To get started click the name of your organization followed by Customize Slack.

Customize Slack

This will open a page in your browser where you'll see all currently added custom emoji.

Slack emoji custom

As you can see, we've added a few emoji here at Zapier. Some of them are inside jokes, some of them are animated delights, and a few are even core to our workflow. More on that later.

To add an emoji, click the Add Custom Emoji button. You'll be asked for a file and a name.

Slack upload emoji

First upload your image. Yes: Animated GIFs are supported. Yes: That is awesome. Next, add a name for the emoji, which you'll use to trigger it in Slack. Click Save, and you're done: You can now use your new emoji in Slack.

Slack emoji working

Enjoy your new emoji. Cherish it. Teach your co-workers to respect it.

Download These Emoji Instead of Being Creative

As a busy professional you may not have the time to express your personality by creating something unique. Good news: You don't have to! There are sites out there with personality you can download and add in just a few clicks.

First you need to head to Cult of the Party Parrot and add basically everything there to your Slack. Immediately. Your teammates will thank you.

Next head to Slackmojis.com and you'll find a bunch more options. There are a lot of great animated options here so take your time and find a few (hundred) that you like.

Emoji As Serious Business

Emoji are fun, obviously. But they're also surprisingly productive, if you use the correct tricks.

For example: We use a question block to signify when someone is asking a question. This allows anyone scrolling through Slack to see that someone is looking for an answer to a question, meaning they're more likely to stop scrolling and answer.

You can also use emoji to trigger automations using Zapier. For example, you could react to any Slack message using a particular emoji to send that message over to your to do list, or any other of the 1,000+ applications Zapier integrates with. Give it a shot and put your emoji to work.



from The Zapier Blog http://bit.ly/2DfbH0R

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If Time-Tracking Apps Don't Work for You, Try a Productivity Journal

-
Image
Monitoring how you spend your time leads to a wealth of useful information: It can tell you what time of day you're most productive , help you create better estimates for how long tasks will take, and show you what activities you'd have to cut to focus your energy on a new idea or project. The most precise way to monitor how you spend your time is to use a time-tracking app . But these apps require a lot of overhead. You have to diligently log your hours (or make sure your app is logging them correctly) and sort your tracked time into categories. You have to pause after every task—no matter how brief—to capture time spent accurately. If tracking your time at such a granular level sounds like a punishment, but you still want insight into how and where you spend your time, consider the less menacing sibling of time-tracking apps: a productivity journal. What Is a Productivity Journal? I kept a journal as a preteen, though in those days I called it a diary. Snoopy and Woods
Read more

The 25 Best Productivity Apps for iPhone in 2018

-
Image
The best productivity apps for iPhone make possible something that would otherwise be impossible, or they make something you need to do simpler and faster. Imagine being asked, unexpectedly, for a copy of a tax form from last year as proof of address during an important appointment that you traveled many miles to attend. In fact, it happened to me, and thankfully I had a copy of the document I needed saved to a file syncing application, which meant I could pull it up on my phone and show it to the gracious Customs and Border Protection officer who demanded to see it. If that's not productivity by way of efficiency, I don't know what is. Perhaps a more routine example is keeping track of time spent in an off-site meeting so that you can claim it as an expense later. If you have the right time-tracking mobile app, you can record the time on the spot rather than having to estimate it and remember to record it later. The use cases for productivity apps are infinite, and sometimes
Read more

Forget Folders: The Best Ways to Organize Your Files with Tags and Labels

-
Image
Trying to find old files is like trying to go back in time and read your own mind. Where would I have saved those pictures from Australia?!? you think, before spending a frustrating half hour digging through folders and folders of miscellaneous images. What would I have called that report I wrote in August 2012?!? Tags (or labels in some apps) can eliminate these exasperating and time-consuming mental exercises. With a couple of tags, you can instantly categorize and label files for hassle-free searches down the road, and then find all of those files again easily no matter where you save them. Let's explore why tagging is so useful, and how to set up your own tag system. Then, we’ll dive into how to tag your emails, photos, notes, and files, and glance at the benefits of using tags alongside folders. Intro to Tagging Tagging Best Practices How to Tag Folders How to Tag Emails How to Tag Photos How to Tag Notes How to Tag Files Turn Tags into Actions Intro to Taggi
Read more