#LMA23 Slack the Conference: Slack Basics

Former LMA Midwest President Laura Toledo brings us Part II of her content series, #LMA23 Slack the Conference.

Less than a week until legal marketers and friends converge on Hollywood, Florida, for the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference! I’ll go out on a limb and say this’ll be the biggest turnout since the pandemic hit.

That could be great or scary news, depending on how you feel about big crowds. So, take a little bit of that scariness out by connecting with conference goers on our Slack space! If you’re just starting out on Slack, head here to read up on what Slack is and why you’d want to use it.

Below, you’ll find out the basics of how to use Slack, so you can make the most of your conference experience!

Sign Up for Slack

Click on this link.
Choose your email for login – you can use a Google or Apple account to log in.

It’ll likely prompt you to open the account link on your Slack desktop app or download the desktop app.
Using the link above to sign up for the first time will give you access to the #LMA23 Slack space, so you won’t have to take any extra steps.
If, at the end of this process, you haven’t downloaded the Slack app on your computer, head here and it’ll walk through downloading.

If you already have Slack, you can use the same link to get access to the #LMA23 Slack space.

Download It Everywhere

The above method gets you access to desktop app.
Get it on your phone by heading to OS appstore and searching for Slack.
You CAN access slack on your browser. When you open up the link, the browser will prompt you with a pop-up to open the link on your Slack desktop app. You can bypass this by proceeding to the web version.

Turning On and Off Notifications

This is up front because it’s going to be the thing that annoys you most. You can be on your phone app or on the desktop app to configure your notifications.

There are two types of settings: the default, overall settings and then channel settings. And note that I’m doing these instructions via the desktop so I can take screenshots. When I talk about hovering or clicking on the desktop, if you’re on your phone app, the equivalent is a finger touch.

Overall Settings

These settings will apply to any new channel you join.

On your desktop app, in the upper left-hand corner where the name of the space is, hit the little arrow down

Select Preferences

The screen that pops up will be the Notifications tab. As you can see, there are three options:
Get alerts for all new messages. This is going to be the most annoying, but it’ll also keep you the most up-to-date.
Get alerts for direct messages and mentions (keywords, too, but that’s a different level of knowledge than I’m dealing with today). You’ll only get alerts when you get a private message or someone tags you.
Don’t get any alerts. Pretty self-explanatory.

Notice that there’s a checkbox to indicate whether you want different settings on your phone. If you check that button, you’ll get a drop-down menu of the same three options.

If you want my advice, I’d set your default notification settings to direct messages and mentions, and then turn on notifications to particular channels you want to stay engaged with.

Adding Yourself to Slack #Channels

We’ll get to the #Channel notification settings in a moment, but first, you should actually be in a channel. Think of #channels like Twitter hashtags – and they actually work in a similar fashion. They’re clickable links within the Slack space to the actual channel.

When you signed up for the #LMA slack, you’ll automatically be added to the #announcements and #chat channels. There are other channels, all outlined here in the Slack Channels tab of Google Sheets, including:

Events: this is where the conference events and dinners are listed
FLL and MIA channels for folks looking for rides to and from the airport
Sessions channels for the keynote, GC panel, and closing sessions, as well as a channel for each of the breakout sessions.

This is where the Slack Channel Google Sheet comes in handy. Check the Channel tab in Sheets to find the name of the sessions you plan on attending or are interested in. All of the breakout sessions start with a “b.”

Head to the #LMA23 Slack space.
In the upper left hand corner, select All Channels – if you don’t see it, select “More” with the vertical ellipses.

This will bring you to a different screen where you’ll see of the channels that are in the LMA Slack space.

You can scroll through the list. If you hover over the #channel, you’ll see the View or Join option.

If you’re already a member of the channel, you’ll see the Leave option.

Use the search field to find the channels you want to add yourself to (check that Sheets!).

#Channel Notifications

Back to notifications. Now that you’re in some channels, you can mess around with the notifications.

The channels you’re a member of appear in the #Channel list on your left sidebar.

On your desktop, right-click on the channel you want to change notifications for, and select “Change notifications.” (You can see on the screenshot below that it also shows you the current notification setting.)

The notification settings for channels are the same as default, only, of course, they apply only within the channel.

Mentions and Channels

We’ve talked a lot about #channels already. Just remember that you can mention channels within other channels when you use it with the #hashtag. So, I may post in #announcements something about the #chat channel, and that #chat hashtag will turn into a link to that channel. Again, these are a lot like Twitter hashtags.

Mentions are when you mention other Slack users. Again, like Twitter (and other social networks), use the @ symbol and type in the username to tag someone.

Threads

Threads occur within channels under a particular message. You’d use these when you don’t want to alert everyone else in the channel to the message.

To reply to a message within a thread, hover over the message and select the little chat bubble.

Fun Functions

Now that you’ve got the basics down, let’s get into the fun parts.

Message Reactions

Hovering over the message, you’ll notice a few options.

The first emojis are the Facebook equivalent of Likes. The face with the plus sign is where you can find other emoji responses (you can also find that to the left side of the message when you hover over it).

Saving a Message

Using that same pop-up toolbar, hit the bookmark icon.

This saves messages in the later section, which you can access in the upper-left navigation, mostly likely under More.

Send GIFs (and using /slash commands)

Honestly, this is my favorite Slack trick. For this to work, you do need to integrate Slack with GIPHY…but in this instance, that’s already happened! So, the only thing you need to do to use it is to type a slash (“/”) and you can either type “giphy” or click on the GIPHY line…

…plus whatever gif you’re looking for (a hello gif in this instance).

Hit Enter. This will not actually post the message, but it will look like it.

This is what you’ll see. Notice that there’s a message at the top that says it’s only visible to you. Use the Shuffle button to find the “right” gif to send. And when you’re ready

Have More Questions?

Ask in the Slack chat! Or stay tuned for the next post on how to direct message people.