Unless the building is on fire or a set of hacker ninjas has stolen your company's identity, do not send messages using @everyone. Depending on your org, you may be needlessly interrupting several hundred people in dozens of time zones.
Using @channel or @group is slightly less disruptive, again, unless that channel has several dozen or hundreds people in it. Use this in smaller channels and sparingly. Always check the count.
Even slightly less disruptive approach built into Slack is to use @here. This alerts everyone who is currently online, and in the channel. Be aware, this could still be several hundred people in larger channels.
A more granular, higher-quality way to be notified as an individual or sub-team is to set up "highlight words" in Slack. When someone uses a highlight word that you and/or your teammates specify, then you're each notified.
Example: Set your highlight words to @beta-team, @feds, @admins and anytime someone uses those terms, you'll get notified. No matter which channel we're in.
Note that the @ isn't required for highlight words, but they help avoid false positives and accidental notifications, and follow Slack's username conventions.
Admins and owners should definitely set something like @admins in their highlight words.
For less common, more-specific topics that don't require channels, you can use highlight words that begin with #. e.g #onboarding. It can work like hashtags in Twitter, and follows Slack's channel naming conventions.
Don't be offended when people leave channels. It's natural for interests and focus to shift from day to day, and Slack is designed for the fluid ways we opt in and opt out of conversations.
Integrations and bots
Bots and integrations can be as annoying as can be useful. Use them wisely and keep the signal-noise ratio high.
No one thinks bots are as funny as you do.
If you're just testing an integration, don't forget about it after you've tinkered, as free accounts only have a limited number of integrations available.
Giphy
Look, gifs are hilarious. But using /giphy [query] is a crapshoot at best. Almost always, the result is totally unrelated. At worst, offensive and not work appropriate.
Also, these can get visually overwhelming if someone goes on a gifstorm, or a bunch of people use them at once like some sort of Macy's Gif Parade. Try to keep them isolated to #random if you just feel like trying them out.
Pro tip: Type /collapse to collapse all images in your current channel, if you can't escape it.
Slack etiquette
Notifying multiple people
Unless the building is on fire or a set of hacker ninjas has stolen your company's identity, do not send messages using @everyone. Depending on your org, you may be needlessly interrupting several hundred people in dozens of time zones.
Using
@channelor@groupis slightly less disruptive, again, unless that channel has several dozen or hundreds people in it. Use this in smaller channels and sparingly. Always check the count.@here. This alerts everyone who is currently online, and in the channel. Be aware, this could still be several hundred people in larger channels.Example: Set your highlight words to
@beta-team,@feds,@adminsand anytime someone uses those terms, you'll get notified. No matter which channel we're in.Note that the @ isn't required for highlight words, but they help avoid false positives and accidental notifications, and follow Slack's username conventions.
Admins and owners should definitely set something like
@adminsin their highlight words.For less common, more-specific topics that don't require channels, you can use highlight words that begin with
#. e.g#onboarding. It can work like hashtags in Twitter, and follows Slack's channel naming conventions.Integrations and bots
Giphy
Look, gifs are hilarious. But using
/giphy [query]is a crapshoot at best. Almost always, the result is totally unrelated. At worst, offensive and not work appropriate.Also, these can get visually overwhelming if someone goes on a gifstorm, or a bunch of people use them at once like some sort of Macy's Gif Parade. Try to keep them isolated to #random if you just feel like trying them out.
Pro tip: Type
/collapseto collapse all images in your current channel, if you can't escape it.