You might think that with over 2 million business- and marketing-related groups available for individuals and organizations to explore, Linkedin would without a doubt be used as the go-to tool for workplace communication.
This, however, is not the case.
Slack, on the other hand, has around 500 communities, yet we see both marketing enthusiasts and seasoned professionals, passionate individuals and industry-leading organizations such as eBay flocking en masse to something a layman would only describe as a simple chatroom.
So, what gives? Why have Slack communities become so enticing for marketers and what makes them more than just another trendy bandwagon to jump on?
What are Slack communities and why should you care?
Put simply, imagine Facebook groups, just for business communication. Or Linkedin groups, only curated by like-minded individuals. Slack communities might be lacking in numbers, when compared to their larger counterparts, but they’re certainly making it up with, what can at times only be described as overwhelmingly positive engagement.
Slack’s usability is another major factor. Facebook groups don’t have an instant messaging option and while you can, in fact, send individual messages to people in your Linkedin group, the process leaves a lot to be desired. Slack’s instant messaging feature is spot on, allowing you to chat with individuals or the entire group with ease.
Even the free version of slack offers no user and time caps, which means that you can have a company with more than a 1000 workers and still enjoy the benefits this platform offers, once again, for free. Furthermore, the tightly-knit nature of Slack communities combined with it’s on-the-spot instant messaging feature ensures not only a quick response to any question you might have, but also high rates of engagement.
Finding partners, talent and even customers
As we already mentioned, individuals and organizations are both willingly choosing to use slack as their go-to platform for marketing-related conversations. Most of these communities have a dedicated #jobs channel, which makes looking for future employees and finding actual talent much easier by default. If you are looking for experienced individuals to help you take on a specifically daunting task or client, or your marketing agency has opened a position that needs to be filled in as soon as possible, posting in marketing #job channels or creating recruitment channels might be your best option at the moment.
Finding just the right employee may seem difficult at times, but finding the right business partner is a whole different ball game. Fortunately, almost every community on Slack features and #aboutus or #shamelessselfplug section where you can find out exactly what that specific community stands for, what their goals are and help you figure out whether they’re just the right fit for you and your company.
Advertising services is also allowed in these communities, allowing freelance workers to display their skills and previous work and allow companies to make sure they are making a good choice. Slack’s public channels and communities are accessible to both individual consumers and large-scale organizations, a fact that allows said organizations to use their own slack communities to look for new customers by means of creating a robust platform for customer advocacy and using them to further drive engagement.
Staying ahead of the content marketing curve
Borrowing a page from Reddit, Slack communities often hold AMA or “ask me anything” sessions where industry experts and professionals offer their precious time to offer precious insight and answer some of the questions community members have. This is an excellent way to keep track with the current content marketing trends and adapt your content marketing strategies accordingly.
Another way to get insight or find out people’s opinions on content- and marketing-specific topics is to create a poll. Granted, you can simply as a group-wide question, but a poll allows you to use slack integrations and quickly quantify your result and turn it into a graph or table metric that can be used to further improve your marketing strategy.
The takeaway
Slack is taking the world of business communication by a storm and quite rightly so. Its simple yet efficient IRC-like system of communication and the ease with which you can upload or search through files and various conversations has made it into a no-brainer for most of the industry. But what is your opinion on Slack communities and do you see them being integrated into your content marketing efforts? We’d love to hear your opinions!
If you’re looking to join our digital marketing slack community. You can sign up here.
