Social Media for Project Managers Discover the benefits, value, expected challenges and social media tools to use for projects. June, 2014
Prepared by: Linky van der Merwe
Table of Contents
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03 04 06 07 09 Power of Social Media
Socially Switched on
Social Media adoption
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Benefits and Best Practices Privacy and Security
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11 26 27 28 29 Let’s become practical Social Media channels
Challenges in the workplace
Social Media Integration on projects
Social tool selection
Resources
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POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
This is a story about project management professionals brought together by the power of social media. The ‘PMflashblog‘ was coordinated by Shim Marom and a first ever project management related global blogging initiative to publish a post on a common theme at exactly the same time. On 25th September 2013 at 1am GMT 80 project management bloggers published on their blogs their thoughts on the title ‘What does project management mean to me – a Project Manager’s sermon’. Globally bloggers from Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and the USA have participated. The participating PMs were excited by this! It was great sharing and viewing the unique perspectives on project management from the globe.
Much chatter around the effort took place under the hashtag #pmFlashblog on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn. In March 2014 the second ‘PMFlashblog’ took place – coordinated by Mark Phillipy, known as the Sensible PM. The topic: Project Management Around the World. A number of SM channels were used in addition to the blogs:
• Google+ PM bloggers group, • Twitter under hashtag #pmFlashblog, • LinkedIn, • Listly with the list of participating bloggers and a list of their Twitter names. .
PMflashblog – a global blogging initiative to publish at the same time |
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SOCIALLY SWITCHED ON
The following will be covered: • What is social media and why adopt it on projects • Benefits of using social media • Best practices when using social media on your projects • Privacy and security guidelines You will learn about recommended best practices, what to do and not to do, how to address concerns around privacy and security etcetera. The various platforms available as social media channels are explained to help you make better selections.
The purpose of this document is to educate project management practitioners about the use of Social Media on projects, as well as using it to enhance your professional project management career.
The challenges that cause tension in the workplace are covered.
How to integrate social media onto projects. Recommendations are made for social media tool selection.
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WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA? Social media is an interactive, dynamic environment. Social media is part of WEB 2.0 where people use the Internet for interactive, social interaction on communication technologies.
Social media is where individuals and businesses can collaborate and communicate in new and simpler ways.
Social media is about an engagement with online communities and allowing user generated content. Social media is a communications and collaboration technology. Social networking apps are the 3rd most used smart phone apps.
It is participatory, community based and interactive. Social networks and blogs account for about a Âź of all time online.
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SOCIAL MEDIA ADOPTION Why Social Media
Managing relationships to build trust Connect, share and organise Adopt social media for the benefits we expect
Managing relationships to build trust is very important for projects, because it’s common for project team members to be distributed geographically while working on projects.
This increase in virtual teams makes the communication process more challenging; therefore more difficult to establish strong relationships and bonds that lead to high levels of trust. Communications delivered through social media are potentially a valuable resource for developing trust between project team members. Social tools are driving a faster flow of knowledge and information within and across organizations. Enterprise social tools apply social media principles to the workplace, making it easier for people to share files and information with colleagues; to collaborate as teams across departments and locations.
The nature of how we work is changing. Work is increasingly done by virtual teams and by workers using mobile devices. This requires new tools that make it easier to connect, share, and organize across locations, teams, and devices. The technology options are abundant and cost effective. As work becomes less routine, employees need easier access to the right knowledge, information, to make fast, informed decisions. Knowledge sharing and project visibility are critical as organizations look to project management as a strategic competency that drives new ideas and achieves business results. Social media provides companies with the ability to quickly identify, organize and deploy teams, to collaborate across borders and between departments, and see a measurable organizational benefit.
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SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES RAISE PRODUCTIVITY
Improved communication and collaboration through social technologies could raise productivity of interaction workers by 20 to 25 percent. Social media for project managers by Jonny Jensen
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BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
What benefits can you expect from using social media on your projects? Social networks, both within and outside of companies, increase the value of collaboration by reducing search and coordination costs of connecting parties who have related knowledge and interests. Social media is an extraordinary opportunity to improve team collaboration at all levels. By developing and managing relevant formal social networks, organizations can facilitate communications that improve decision making and operations.
In a field like project management that depends on lessons learned and best practices to deliver repeatable results, the pool of resources you can tap into via social media is very powerful.
Social media tools not only foster communication and availability; they allow for financial savings. The cost of traveling expenses and monthly telephone bills can be reduced by using a videoconference program such as Skype to host a meeting. Social media can serve as a cornerstone of best practices and organizational knowledge. At end of lengthy project, it can be handed over to the operational team. It allows for real-time quick sharing and ad-hoc sharing of information. It provides PM’s the ability to provide real-time information to stakeholders from any location at any time. Social media for personal use benefit you by being able to discuss challenges with other PM’s and hear from PM’s in different sectors, providing an on-going roundtable that fosters continuous improvement.
Benefits– collaboration, networking, cost savings, sharing of best practices |
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BEST PRACTICES
The best use of social media is to focus on building relationships. Make sure your project team is in agreement with which social networking tools are to be used. You might want to document how the team should use the tools, when to use the tools, should be contained, and not coand what type of content ntained, in posts. There is a stronger chance of the tools being used when everyone understand some fundamentals about them.
Social media is not a technology; it’s about human beings doing what they do best, to socialize and to share; now they have means to share. It‘s a culture, a culture created, supported and enabled by various technologies and applications that are constantly growing and changing. People think, act, and communicate in a completely different way.
Assign a social media monitor. This could be one person to monitor your social media sites overall or, one person -probably the PM- to monitor social media use for each individual project.
Social media is the way of the future. It will keep maturing, growing, and changing, but it is here to stay. Get on-board or be left behind!
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PRIVACY AND SECURITY Privacy and security are valid concerns and must be taken into account when adopting social media into the workplace. You need processes and guidelines in place to ensure that social media is used responsibly and that care is taken when sharing information inside and outside of your team to protect company intellectual property. Proactively define your social media policy – concise and clear, along with acceptable tools and their use. Share it with employees to read and sign. Evaluate the business and communication needs within your organization to determine who should have access to social media tools at every level - project, program, portfolio and stakeholder. Grant and restrict access as per security guidelines. Respect the firewall. Implement appropriate social media tools behind your firewall to increase security. This may be a challenge for virtual teams, so establish access rules and policies for remote users. Social media for project managers by Evolutionary IT
Establish rules of engagement. Define how you want social media to be used by project managers within your organization. Will it be used for training, to manage projects, as a means for research, or all of the above? Defining its focus and purpose will enable you to select the right social media tools for your team. Protect your intellectual property by ensuring that your team knows and understands what can and cannot be shared via social media channels.
Social media policy gives guidelines for dealing with confidential and proprietary information and security issues. |
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SOCIAL SOFTWARE
Social media is a form of social software. According to Wikipedia social software applications include communication tools and interactive tools.
No one size fits all Do pilot the software Test it and validate
On projects communication tools typically handle the capturing, storing and presentation of communication. It can be written, or in audio or video. The tools focus on establishing and maintaining a connection among users. According to IBM social software has enabled social business that embraces and cultivates a spirit of collaboration and community throughout its organisation – both internally and externally.
Social media for project managers by Evolutionary IT
The forecast from Forrester is that Enterprise social software is to become a $6.4 billion market by 2016 and that organisation will continue to increase their spending on enterprise collaboration software. You can choose between: • SaaS (Software as a Service) that’s easy to deploy with potentially lower TCO versus • Locally installed traditional enterprise software which is more complex and costly to manage, but you have more control and you own the solution.
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Let’s Become Practical
BLOGS, SLIDESHARE
YAMMER
WEBINARS, PODCASTS
GOOGLE+
WIKI, PINTEREST
Let’s become practical Various platforms are available as social media channels. Let’s look at the tools being used by Project Managers.
Project Managers can use social media to gain credibility, build expertise, share ideas and deepen their network.
You can differentiate between tools to use on projects versus tools to use as a project manager or a company for thought leadership and to deepen networks.
Use social media on projects to share information and status, collaborate, connect with stakeholders, and the team.
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LinkedIn is the leading social media networking site for professionals with more than 238 million users. Emerging as top source for business-related content, fuelled by its Influencers program. The Influencer network consists of high-profile CEOs, entrepreneurs and thought leaders from every major industry. As a social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn will help you find experts in project management. It has fused resume, cover letter and references all in one.
Benefits to Project Managers Many project management related interest groups exist on LinkedIn which you may join. Add yourself to groups and build community with people who share common interests with you or your business. This way you can connect with as many project professionals as you like including experts who can answer questions and provide advice. Can be used to research team members, partners or project management groups (almost 7000 results) - groups with the most members are displayed at the top and the number of active discussions are also shown. A Search for “project manager� delivered more than 4,5 million results. LinkedIn is great for networking with other professionals, for finding experts or for being a though leader in your industry, for finding project management positions and for recruiters who are looking for job candidates. InMail can be used to connect with people not in your 1st level network. |
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FACEBOOK Although Facebook, with more than 600 million active users, is normally associated with being a social platform to find old friends or to share personal details with your friends, it has risen as a business tool in the past 5 years.
Benefits to Project Managers These days many project managers or project management companies have Facebook pages. Use it to engage with your customers and to obtain feedback on certain topics, or even with a fun quiz. On Facebook you can learn from experts about project management and send them mails. Send updates with links to project management articles and news. You can create professional contacts to get questions answered or to jump to a suggested site. You can also join project groups.
Case Study: Knowledge Train To the left you see an example of a fun quiz that was done on a Project Management Company Page to obtain answers about social media from their Project Management community.
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YAMMER Yammer is like Facebook’s equivalent, but in corporate world, focused on the company. Yammer is an enterprise social software that’s great for use on projects.
Benefits to Project Managers for use on projects You can share announcements, create a team calendar of milestones, create pages for different interests, and upload documents. Also consider posting your team norms, latest screenshots of the app for team members to comment on, and sharing video updates or team photos. Yammer allows for more in-depth updates and comments can also be grouped into a “thread” beneath each post, allowing for a more conversational tone.
Case Study from Adam Pisoni Consider Red Robin. Last year, the restaurant chain rolled out Yammer to 2,500 managers and staff in its corporate office. When the company introduced a new burger to its menu, managers used the enterprise social network to deliver customer feedback straight from its restaurants. That helped them refine the recipe in a month—a fraction of the time it would have taken in the past, according to the CIO, Chris Laping. This tool provides huge value for a company, engage people in the field, learn from them and obtain feedback on a daily basis.
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GOOGLE+
Most people have a Google profile and it’s very easy to join Google+. There are over 50 million users on Google+. Google+ adds Circles, Hangouts and Sparks and there’s tight integration with all of Google’s services.
Benefits to Project Managers for use on projects • Use for social networking and collaborate in real-time, share ideas and even do interviews. • Use for chat (instant messaging). • Google Hangouts is a live video chat that will create meaningful two-way communication with (users/teams) on Google+. You can connect with your colleagues, stakeholders and customers via a video chat. • You can also record the conversation so it can be viewed at a later time.
Benefits to Project Managers for personal use If you or your company has an online presence, there is also value in having a Google+ account for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. • Find multiple interest groups to join discussions, watch webinars or to join Google hang-outs. • With built-in authorship verification, Google+ will serve up your relevant posts in search results. • Join Pages and communities – do a search for #PMHangouts.
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TWITTER Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging tool today
Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging tool today. It allows you to send short messages to the internet, but limits the update to 140 characters and permits your “tweets” to be protected. The tweets appear on your homepage in a chronological stream, with the most recent comments at the top.
There are several ways to use Twitter to help you manage a project: 1. Project management articles – use search to find good articles about specific project management topics and best practices. 2. Team hastags # – a project team can decide on its own hashtags for the projects they’re working on. a. If your team is working on a business application project, you could decide on a hashtag to use across Twitter, such as #busapp. b. Keep team members updated on daily progress. c. This will work for projects where security is less of a concern. 3. Create a list for your team relating to the project you are working on. a. Send them the URL of the list so they can see who you’ve added. b. This is useful for a virtual and widely distributed team. 4. It’s easy to use and allows for quick and near immediate communication.
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Ways to useTwitter to help you as a Project Manager: 1. # Hashtags are used to help index and filter the subject matter of your tweet. a. For example, the hashtag #pmot is used for tweets about “project management on Twitter”. When you click on the hashtag, you will immediately see a page full of the recent tweets that have used the same tag. b. This is a simple way that users can quickly filter for only tweets about specific subjects. also search for tweets by typing the hashtag in the Twitter search box. c. Other useful hashtags for PM’s: #projectmanager, #pmp, #project, #msproject, #project2010, and #pm. 2. Every Friday there’s #PMChat for Tweetups. This is an innovative way for project managers to get answers to project management questions and obtain different perspectives. 3. Lists - On the Home page of Twitter, your Twitter timeline can get cluttered very quickly. Twitter lists become useful as it allow you to group Twitter users. a. Make a list of other users who are also in Project Management, for example Project Managers. Every time you follow a person on Twitter who is also a project manager, you add them to your list. b. By following this process you will soon connect with project managers from all over the world who you can follow and collaborate with. c. You can also follow other people’s PM lists.
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BLOGS
Blogs are made up of posts, which are short articles that appear in reverse chronological order on the blog. Blogs have an archive facility which will display historical posts by day, week, or month.
Benefits to Project Managers for use on projects • Put all the project documentation on a blog. • Use as mechanism for progress reports. • Use for major Milestone announcements - blogs are a great way to keep your team informed of the major phases that are coming up, as well as to recognize the good work your team has accomplished as milestones are passed. • Keep blogs interesting by posting pictures of a product in various stages, or of people who are making a product that aren’t usually in the company newsletter. • Use of features – use comments fields, as well as tags and ratings features of blogs. Collect feedback as part of bi-directional communication.
• Decide early whether you want to use external blogging sites or internal blogs. Many products are available internally. • SharePoint Workspace 2010 contains a blogging feature that your organization can use to create a blog that is private to your team. • WordPress • Blogger |
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SLIDESHARE
SlideShare is a social network site with an average of 60 million visitors per month. It is used to share professional content like presentations, infographics, documents, videos, PDFs, and webinars. It’s a great tool for a project manager to build visibility and thought leadership. Searching on “project management” will find thousands of presentations about project management.
SlideShare is among the top 120 most-visited websites in the world
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WEBINARS A webinar is simply a seminar hosted on the web. It is also used to describe other types of meetings where the participants go to a website to see the presentation material. Participants use their web browser to access a website for that meeting. Tools to use are Scribd, MeetUp, SharePoint.
Benefits to Project Managers for use on projects This is very useful to present a topic to virtual teams attending from different parts of the country or even the world. • Example: International Project Management day by International Institute for Learning (IIL)
Benefits to Project Managers for personal use Many webinars are hosted weekly covering useful project management topics and contributions from people in the profession. • Example: Roeder Consulting for free monthly webinars on various project management topics
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PODCASTS Podcasts are audio files that can be delivered on-demand and regularly through a mechanism that allows people to subscribe to the latest episodes, like RSS.
Benefits to Project Managers for personal use Numerous project management topics are discussed on podcasts. • Example: You can download and listen at your own time • For existing PMP’s this can count towards PDU’s. • Well known Podcast service is ‘The Project Management Podcast’ from Cornelius Fichtner.
Vodcasts • Video broadcasts on a specific topic and can be distributed and accessed on demand. • This is a great tool for handing over a project upon completion • Use for pre-recording training sessions for future access.
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YOUTUBE
To deliver material in an engaging way – use YouTube or Vimeo.
Benefits to Project Managers for personal use For the project manager, YouTube offers hundreds of videos on project management methodology. • More people prefer video to text with certain types of information. • Let your audience know your videos are intended to give them better and more compelling information. • Example: projectmanager.com – who distribute free videos as a marketing tool to educate people about project management and to promote their software. • Jennifer Whitt, Director of ProjectManager.com use White Board sessions that are very educational and easy to watch.
Benefits to Project Managers for use on projects If you have distributed teams, set each group up with the means to create video updates. Not only will your status reports be more engaging, but putting faces to names creates a closer, more respectful team.
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WIKI
The Wiki is likely the oldest platform and it’s a space in which users can add, modify and delete pages and content using a simple mark-up language. A compelling feature of a wiki is that its structure and content is created and maintained by the users themselves as it is grows and is being used.
Benefits to Project Managers for use on projects
Benefits– content is collaboratively created by the community.
A Wiki is an online documentation platform that allows the creation and editing of interlinked websites - captures this data in a structured way as the project progresses.
Wikis can also be used at a PMO level for gathering lessons learned throughout the course of various projects. It’s good as a Knowledge Base. Since Wikis are easy to search (archive), project managers have fast access to information relevant to their work and can update that information with knowledge that could lead to future improvements. Pull all your project information together in one place and stay connected with your project team. Includes a project blog, a place for to-do items, team profile pages, a file storage area, and more! Wikis are flexible and can serve as the backbone for a small team’s shared notebook or an entire corporate intranet. You can host a wiki on your own server (SharePoint) or use a service company (Socialtext) that offers hosted solutions that allow you to sign up and get started immediately. If you want to create a space for your team, but don’t want to dictate how it’s organized or actively manage it as an administrator, a wiki is a good option. |
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Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that you can use to find ideas and share. An interesting way of using Pinterest by project managers or project management companies, is the following: Publish Infographics on Pinterest on PM topics such as: • “7 Project Manager Personalities”; “Brief history of Project Management” • “10 Quick tips for better Status Updates” The benefit of using Pinterest is that it will always contain a link back to your own website which gives good SEO value and attract visitors back to your website.
http://www.pinterest.com/tonyadamspm/
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Social Media Integration
Challenges in the Workplace
Integration on Projects
SocialTool Selection Resources About the Author
CHALLENGES IN THE WORKPLACE
It’s more than a technical challenge; a cultural change is also needed to be
A few keys are offered to an effective social strategy.
successful.
1.
First, companies need to assess their current business priorities, challenges, and culture and align their vision for enterprise social.
2.
Executive support of social tools is important, but experience shows it is ineffective to merely mandate use. Successful enterprise social initiatives require bottom-up employee adoption along with top-down executive support to validate the tool and the commitment to learn and adapt along the way.
3.
It is best to start with small teams tackling specific, measurable problems (for example, trying to increase revenue, decrease costs). Once those test cases prove the value of social tools, it's easier to expand adoption.
In addition to the challenge of time pressures and not knowing how to integrate social media onto projects there are a few more challenges you can expect. There's still a disconnect in the office. While employees see social technology as a productivity tool, some IT departments and leaders remain wary. Ironically, businesses worry social tools will drain productivity. Yet, it is exactly these types of tools that employees are clamouring for to make themselves more productive. The challenge of bringing in social tools is more than a technical challenge. A cultural change is also needed to be successful. That's because social isn't just another technology but something that enables new ways of working. Some companies have struggled with enterprise social, because It's a journey of reinvention that requires a strategy and executive commitment and support. To be effective, you need the right tools, but you also need a strategy that is specific to your organization's business objectives, challenges and culture.
Social strategy– you need a strategy that is specific to your organization’s business objectives, challenges and culture. |
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SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION ON PROJECTS
What you need for integration: According to Steve Nicholls a winning strategy is to have an adaptable, stepby-step, ongoing formula to bring social media onto projects. Adopt a unique blend of social media according to the nature and size of the project, different members involved and the environment in which members are operating. Social media and the availability of industry thought-leaders willing to collaborate and mentor, can play a vital role in building up project management knowledge in organizations. Social media provides an excellent vehicle for fostering communities of best practice while exposing PM’s to a framework of experience, collaboration, and knowledge – learning that requires informal contact and a willingness to share information -a perfect use of social media.
For a Social Media Strategy template, checklist and action planner, please click here.
Use social media on your projects, as well as personally to enhance your professional PM career.
A social media strategy to grow your professional career may contain specific tactics like: 1. Follow project managers on Twitter (hashtag #pmot). It's a great place to get acquainted with other PM’s to learn from and to share with. 2. Join project management groups on Linkedin and start participating in discussions. 3. Spend a few minutes daily to read and comment on your favorite blogs. Participating in the conversation is a great way to contribute to the community yourself. 4. Build communities with Facebook, Yammer or Google+ Be patient. Before long you'll be participating and building relationships with peers from all over the world.
Social media– for communities of best practice and exposure to a framework of experience, knowledge and collaboration. |
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SOCIAL TOOL SELECTION
As you develop you social media action plan, use these five questions to gather information from your team: 1.
How sensitive is content that would be shared? Twitter does offer capabilities to secure tweets and send direct messages away from the public. Yammer and a selfhosted wiki are examples of private spaces.
2.
Is your communication unidirectional or bidirectional? If you are looking for a new way to communicate status, Vimeo allows for password-protected videos or setting access. To get your entire team talking together, look for a platform with a forumstyle area such as a LinkedIn group or wiki for your team to post updates, and to comment and converse in a free-form way.
3.
Photo credit: SEO & SMO Expert's Review
Do you have a social platform budget? While most platforms offer free or low-cost versions with basic functionality, tiered pricing can get you more. Based on your platform selection and tiered pricing structures, get a sense of what it will cost.
Here are a few useful, recommended management tools: •
HootSuite – An amazing syndication tool that allows you to track multiple social media profiles and schedule posts across social sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+
•
Tweetdeck: Dashboard application to manage Twitter account
•
SproutSocial – This analytics tool does a great job of helping you monitor the stats for your social sites as well as helping you find great new people to follow on Twitter
•
SocialMention – This one does a great job of quickly searching the web for mentions of your name, brand or keywords
4.
What social platforms do team members use today? Take a poll – on what people use, to gauge levels of interest in trying something out. Introducing social tools always introduces the challenge of adoption, so to think about how to get people engaged.
.
5.
Keep it Personal or make it Professional? Work with your team to determine what info will be shared; whether team members should use their personal accounts or create professional accounts.
Social media action plan– answer some questions to make the best decisions and to select appropriate tools. |
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RESOURCES
1.
Herbert Remidez: Developing a model for social media in project management communications. http://ijbssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_3_February_20 12/3.pdf
Enterprise Social Software 2.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-za/project-help/usetwitter-facebook-and-other-social-media-to-help-
www.yammer.com
manage-projects-and-teams-HA101929375.aspx
www.salesforce.com/chatter/
3.
he-use-of-social-media-in-project_19.html
www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/ 4.
www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/ www.jivesoftware.com
http://workingwithoutwalls.blogspot.com/2012/10/t
http://www.geneca.com/social-media-meets-projectmanagement/
5.
http://www.business2community.com/socialmedia/14-social-media-marketing-trends-2014-
www.socialtext.com www.telligent.com
0745445#TPRlOh9SwvrrlJ3k.99 6.
https://sites.google.com/site/projectwikitemplate_en/
7.
http://www.evolutionaryit.com/presentations/social_ media_for_project_managers.pdf
8.
http://www.slideshare.net/jonniejensen/social-mediafor-project-management
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About the Author
Contact and Connect
Linky vd Merwe is a certified project management professional (PMP) and Founder of Virtual Project Consulting. Her mission is to provide project management best practices advice and to recommend resources to aspiring and existing project managers.
Twitter:
@virtualpm
Virtualprojectconsulting
With 15 years project experience she has a keen understanding of the challenges project management practitioners face daily. She’s also an avid social media user. Project Management Social will teach what you need to know about social media on projects and for personal use,
Google+
Linky
Linky
why you will benefit from using it where to find the appropriate platforms and how to integrate it onto projects how to use it to enhance your professional career.
Virtual Project Consulting:
VPC blog feed
linky@virtualprojectconsulting.com
Blog feed:
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