Media training 101 for small businesses

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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...
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The best automations for Slack users

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Slack is a great way to coordinate. It can also be a great place to get information about your business in realtime—if you set up the right automations.

Slack is a bit distracting at times, but it's hard to imagine a better place for realtime conversation. And you can make it even better, pulling in the information your business needs at precisely the time you need it. Here are a few Zaps—what we call our automated workflows—you can set up, right now, to make Slack a more productive place.

Related: Your Slack automations will look a lot nicer if you learn how to format Slack messages in Zapier

Find out when a new lead comes in

Does your business run on leads? Then you know how essential it is to respond quickly. Slack is an app you probably already have open, so it's a great place to send alerts about new leads. Here are a few templates for doing just that, notifying you and your team when would-be customers fill out a contact form on Facebook and other sites.

Set these up and your team will see the leads as they come in, without having to manually check yet another app. They can discuss who will respond right in Slack, meaning there's no ambiguity about who is responding.

Note that you can also do this with Google Sheets, seeing a notification every time a new row is added. This is a great way to track leads and a lot more.

See incoming emails and coordinate as a team

Slack users don't need email for internal coordination, but the outside world still uses it to contact your team. Sharing an inbox can be confusing, however—who is supposed to respond to which emails? Slack is a great place to decide. Here are a couple automations that can notify your team when a new email comes in.

Set these up and you can discuss who should respond to emails, meaning your customers will never get multiple responses again.

Monitor your social media accounts

Social media is… a lot. But your team needs to stay on top of it. You can get notifications in Slack for every major social media site, meaning your team won't have to keep all of those apps open to see what's going on. Here are a bunch of Zaps for that.

Obviously only some social networks are going to matter to your team, and you should only set up the Zaps that are useful for you. The kinds of sites that journalists need to track are different than what real estate agents will need. But the ideas remain the same: seeing relevant social content in realtime, without having to keep yet another tab open.

Connect your calendar

Your Slack status lets co-workers know whether they can expect to reach you—if you remember to change it. If you never do, don't worry: We've got a few Zaps for the job.

If using your status is too subtle, don't worry: you can also send a message to your team when an event starts. This is also a great way to make sure your entire team knows when a meeting is about to begin.

Here are more ways to automatically update your Slack status using Zaps.

Send starred items to your to-do list

People ask you to do stuff on Slack. Then you forget about it. You can star messages that include a request, but that only works if you remember to check your starred messages from time to time. That's why it's a good idea to send Slack messages you star over to your to-do list app. Here are a few Zaps for that:

These are just a few examples. You could create a similar workflow using any of the thousands of apps supported by Zapier, including a bunch of task management apps.

Log your messages on Google Sheets

Slack's free version only lets you browse the 10,000 most recent messages, but there's a workaround. You can create your own log of all messages in Google Sheets. Just set up this simple automation and every message will be saved, giving you a personal archive.

Get a daily weather forecast

Weather isn't the most exciting thing on the web, but it's always useful. Here's a quick way to get a weather update on Slack, every day.

If data exists you can send it to Slack

These examples just scratch the surface of what you can do with Slack and Zapier. Zapier supports thousands of apps, meaning you can build almost any automation you can imagine. Start building your Zap now and see what you can come up with.



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2TMCSXw

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