With so much information shared during the workday, you need flexible solutions that enable effective collaboration without feeling slowed down. While VoIP phone systems, email, and video conferencing are critical solutions that enable collaboration, employees around the world have also been leveraging another useful tool to share information — instant messaging solutions.
Instant messaging apps are designed to help you communicate quickly, collaborate on-demand or asynchronously, and share important information at the click of a button.
Enjoy seamless collaboration with team instant messaging software
What are the advantages of instant messaging?
Instant messaging has always been essential for connecting with people around the world in real time. But it’s particularly more relevant in the era of flexible work, as employees are now dispersed across different time zones and countries, as well as unique offices and remote workspaces.
Beyond connecting distributed teams, instant messaging applications provide a number of tangible business benefits, including:
Instant messaging features designed to streamline collaboration
Zoom Team Chat offers countless features, all designed to support productivity, increase access to information, and benefit your business. These are just a few of the features and innovations available within Zoom Team Chat that you can use to work better, together:
Get the information you need
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Deep linksWant to share details directly from the source? You can direct teammates to specific chats and conversations with a shareable link, making information simple and easy to find.
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Continuous meeting chat
This feature lets you communicate before, during, and after a meeting by creating a dedicated group chat in Zoom Team Chat for meeting participants. When enabled, in-meeting chats will show up in that group chat as they are sent in the meeting, allowing conversations to continue after a meeting ends.
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Status messages
Need to note that you’re at a doctor's appointment? Or that you’re working on a certain project at the moment? Setting a status message is an easy way to share and obtain information across an organization, that way you can know what colleagues are doing during work hours.
Never lose track of files
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Send screen captures, files, and photos
Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words. You can use Zoom Team Chat to send screenshots, images, files, and even chat reactions to a chat contact, group chat, or channel. And when you need to track down a photo or document previously sent over chat, you can use the search bar to go through old messages and documents in context to find what you need.
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Channels backed by cloud storage
Store files, documents, and content with popular cloud storage solutions and create and collaborate on documents from within Zoom Team Chat. Learn more here.
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Integrations
Want to quickly kick over an important document to a team member? Zoom Team Chat integrates with Box, SharePoint, Google Drive, OneDrive and more, helping you save time and simplify workflows by providing the ability to upload, share, access, and manage files.
Stay productive and organized
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Folders
Group together different chats and channels to keep your conversations organized and easy to access when you need them.
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Customizable sidebar
With the ability to arrange and group your chats and channels as you like, it’s easy to stay organized and keep an eye on incoming messages.
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Reminders
Running out the door and want to save an important message for later? The remind me feature helps you follow up on a message at a later time, so you can stay on top of tasks without having to be always available.
Communicate with ease
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Video messages
Streamline the process of leaving detailed messages with the ability to send video messages through chat.
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Zoom AI Companion
If you need to get up to speed on chats and provide a timely response, you can use the Team Chat compose with Zoom IQ (free trial for customers in select plans) to draft a message for you based on conversational context. You can change the message tone and length to customize suggested responses.
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Language translation
Organizations using Zoom Team Chat across different regions and countries likely have employees speaking a variety of languages. To avoid communication breakdowns or confusion, you can translate select languages in context by simply clicking the ellipsis icon next to the message and selecting “Translate.”
FAQs
Instant messaging (IM) is a type of communication where two or more people participate in a real-time conversation, messaging each other back and forth over their computers, tablets, or mobile devices.
To IM, you often use a standalone application or embedded software. IM sessions can occur between two users in a private, separate space, or in a larger channel where multiple parties are in. Usually, instant messaging involves a quick, back-and-forth style of communication — making it unique from email communication. IM’s immediacy feels familiar to in-person conversations, whereas email is meant to reflect the virtual version of writing a letter or sending snail mail.
Instant messaging apps — or clients — come with a handful of features that help you understand when someone is available to talk. You can see whether certain team members are online usually through certain icons or color-coded signals that indicate their presence. As the technology has evolved, many instant messaging solutions offer advanced features such as file transfer, image sharing, note taking, and more.
Texting and instant messaging use different systems and protocols to communicate. To send a text, you must be using a cellular phone service. But you can only send an instant message when connected to the internet.
In previous iterations, instant messaging services required that all participants had to be actively engaging in the conversation or else the IM session would end. However, a text can be sent and received at any time.
Now, almost all instant messaging platforms let you send asynchronous messages — you can send and receive chats whenever you’d like. Moreover, texting and instant messaging are very similar in how they notify users of these messages. When a text or IM message is sent, the recipient is usually alerted with a pop-up window — that either notifies that the message has arrived or contains the message’s contents. The notification is usually accompanied by a distinctive sound too.
First off, start by researching which instant messaging platform is best suited for your needs. While some IM apps are specifically for consumers and others for enterprises, crossovers have occurred. Some instant messaging applications need to be purchased separately, while other IM services come included with existing technology platforms, so you may already have access to a messaging service and not know it.
Zoom Team Chat, for example, comes included with other Zoom products, meaning you already have the instant messaging solution — and its advanced capabilities — right at your fingertips.