#Telegram has had a surge in new users during this pandemic. Ministries are using it to spread information. Universities are using it to design bots to aid in patient care. Schools are using it for online learning. So here's a thread of features that make Telegram so useful.

Sharing and viewing links in Telegram is made better by Instant View. You can open links directly in Telegram, all advertising and webpage elements are stripped out, all you see is the content of the article. Clean and simple. Links still work too.

Sharing links from social media sites is great too. Images from social media posts can be viewed inside Telegram itself without needing to even tap on the link to open the respective app (or browser). Works with videos as well. Such a big convenience.

Video playback is smartly implemented in Telegram. Videos can autoplay in the chat view silently, and if you want to turn on the audio just press a volume button on the phone and the audio will start playing. Another big convenience.

One of the most useful features of Telegram is being able to edit sent messages. No more typos, no more deleting a message and resending it after correction. Just edit what has already been sent. Absolutely indispensable.

Telegram supports polls which is great for groups. Getting a consensus via a poll is much cleaner, more convenient, and more effective than having each person reply to a question individually. This is also a powerful tool for channels as only admins can post in channels.

Speaking of, many governments, schools, universities, and communities have started using Telegram channels for information dissemination. They were designed specifically as channels with real admin tools, which is why they're preferred over WhatsApp groups https://telegram.org/tour/channels 

One of the things that makes Telegram fun to use is stickers, and Telegram stickers are remarkable. Not only are they easy to find and download within the app itself, they also come in both static and animated formats. Such a well implemented feature.

Getting in touch with people on Telegram is easy. You don't need to add a person as a contact, you don't even need their phone number, just their username. This is great for privacy minded people who don't want to give their phone number to everyone.

Which is especially useful in groups. In a WhatsApp group everyone can see your phone number. In a Telegram group nobody will see your number unless you are mutual contacts. This is such an important privacy feature that doesn't get enough attention.

Like many other online services (except WhatsApp), Telegram supports both multiple devices and multiple accounts. You can have both personal and work accounts on the same phone and use Telegram in your phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, all independently from each other.

Since you can use Telegram on multiple devices, it means that your account, your chats, media, contacts, are all synced online, which means you never need to backup or restore your account like you do with WhatsApp. You'll never lose anything in your account.

Multidevice support also allows you to draft a message on one device and continue it on another.

Also, something recently added which you can see in this image, chat folders. You can organise your chats into folders to make them easier to find. Makes your inbox less cluttered.

One of the best reasons to use #Telegram for work is scheduled messages. If you need to contact a work colleague but it's outside of office hours you can compose a message and schedule it to send the next day at 8 am.

Sending silently is also an option. https://twitter.com/RymdWong/status/1259629101737902080?s=19

You can save messages in Telegram, or send messages to yourself. A great way to bookmark messages or to move content between your devices.

Combined with scheduled messages, you can even use @telegram as a reminder app. Send yourself a scheduled message to get a reminder later.

If you want to send photos/images to your contacts without them being compressed into a low quality mess, #Telegram allows you to do that.

This is legit the most common reason my friends have started using Telegram. They've had it with WhatsApp's image compression.