Apply good Social Media Practices as a Project Professional

There are people who spend an extra-ordinary amount of time on social media daily. You tell yourself that you want to uncover news and industry trends in real-time, or perhaps you want to spy on your competition. Or you use social media to provide better customer service. You want to connect with colleagues and thought leaders. There are many reasons, some good, some less so. As a Project Management professional there are good practices to keep in mind when you engage on social media. Here are great guidelines on how to navigate social media with colleagues from Quill.com.

Some companies have have very strict social media policies, and if that’s the case, you’d best read up and follow these policies closely or risk accidentally committing a fireable offense. It is best to keep it professional considering your position at work. Generally, it’s easier to keep your personal and professional lives separate and not to become friends with your entire office.

Consider the platform you’re using as you would approach the various networks differently. Post with care and maintain your privacy by knowing how the privacy settings work on each platform. Always think before you post and a good rule of thumb is to stick to what you would say in public, as people tend to think they can hide behind account pictures and say anything they like when they are not seen in person.

One example of approaching it could be to use Facebook only for friends and family, whereas LinkedIn is a good platform for professional connections. If you receive a Facebook friend request from a colleague, you can politely decline with a reason and ask them to connect on LinkedIn instead. When you consider these guidelines and keep it professional, you should be good to navigate the murky online waters in a professional and respectable way.

How to navigate social media with coworkersInfographic by Quill

September 18, 2018July 4, 2019 Linky

Is your Marketing Skills Modern enough for Future Generation Consumers?

By Quinn Cooley

Digital marketing has evolved rapidly and social media, mobile devices, and the way customers shop, have turned traditional marketing on its head and brought in new best practices.

This wouldn’t be a problem if marketers were prepared for these changes, but many are not. Over 75% of marketers do not believe their departments are modern or nimble. If you and your company aren’t up to date on what the newest generation of buyers (Generation Z – born 1996 – 2010) wants from their online experience, it may be time to modernize and update your marketing skills.

Many of the members of Generation Z aren’t yet able to make their own purchases, but they account for 22% of the US population. They have a big influence (up to $333 billion) in household spending. Younger consumers are digital natives, and it’s crucial to meet them on their own preferred platforms and devices.

Marketing in 2018 has to combine multi-channel approaches with big data, SEO, and exciting new mediums for content. Content marketing has become a long-term must for everything from branding to loyalty. The catch? Young readers need a hook, and they like a variety of written and visual mediums. Beautiful designs, videos, interactive content—marketers have the challenge of creating fresh content that has a consistent voice and message at all times.

The modern marketer needs a wide range of skills, particularly in a smaller company. Strong writing and social media skills, the ability to shift between long and short-form content, design, analytics and more. As if the creative aspects of marketing weren’t enough, marketers also need to have strong operational skills. Being able to keep on budget, keep the goals of the department aligned with the company goals, and measuring relevant metrics and ROI are all key for ensuring that digital marketing has a long-term eye toward profits. It’s all about the numbers, especially as companies move toward lean initiatives.

July 5, 2018 Linky

Social Media as a Customer Service Tool

Social Media on projects

On the Virtual Project Consulting blog we have discussed various topics around social media and it’s uses for project management. Lately, we looked at use cases and research about shaping social media for better collaboration on projects and using it to make project management more future fit.

However, social media have multiple purposes in the business world, especially as a means for customer service that will serve companies well.

Customer Service Channel

Social media is a unique customer service channel because it allows you to engage with consumers in a way that was previously impossible, and despite this marked advantage, the technology is easy and cost-effective to implement. Moreover, leveraging social media for customer service allows you to build a strong relationship with your audience and discover previously unnoticed market opportunities.

As more people take to social media platforms, enterprise customer service activities will become increasingly transparent. As a result, it’s important to make sure that you get it right so that you don’t lose brand credibly or alienate your customers.

Social Media Customer Service in Practice

When using social media as a customer service channel, it’s important to make sure that your staff members are well-versed in using designated platforms as well as your product or service offerings and company policies. You should start your social media customer service initiative by clearly defining what services your organization will provide and estimating how much traffic volume your employees will manage. By establishing initial parameters, you’ll have a foundation to measure the performance of your new initiative. Furthermore, if your team meets their assigned goals, you’ll have quantifiable proof of your return-on-investment.

To learn more, view this Social Media Infographic, created by USC’s Online Master of Science in Applied Psychology program.

It covers different use cases for social media as a customer service channel, reasons for using it and the benefits you can expect.

August 26, 2014December 22, 2021 Linky

Social Media and Project Management in South Africa

This week it was my privilege to be interviewed by Jerry Ihejirika, a project management blogger from Nigeria in his new series called “Project Management for Africa”.

According to Jerry I’m one of the most active African Project Managers on Twitter (@virtualpm) and for that reason as well as my passion for project management, he chose me to interview, using Twitter. I thought it was an innovative medium to use to conduct the interview and a good example of the power of social media to promote our profession.

Below is an extract of the interview that I wanted to share with my community too.

When exactly did you venture into project management and what informed your decision?

I’ve been in the project management profession since 1999. I’m an accidental Project Manager, and I love working with teams and the satisfaction of achieving goals.

As someone who is passionate about project management, what’s the best project management advice you’ve ever received?

From both advice and my experiences: “Always be planning, always be communicating, and always build relationships.”

What’s the level of awareness of project management in South Africa?

In South Africa, there is a growing level of awareness and appreciation of project management as a professional designation. We have a Body called SAQA (South African Qualifications Authority) which has officially recognised project management as a professional designation with career path. It’s also required by corporate employers for a Project Manager to have a PMP (certified) status, especially when applying for senior roles.

Is there any recognized national PM body in South Africa to help promote and advance Project Management in the country?

Yes, Project Management South Africa, or PMSA, representing project management practitioners across all sectors. They have monthly meetings in major cities, a biennial national conference, national printed magazine; we also have PMI chapters whose members meet monthly.

You’re one of the advocates of social media in project management. Do you think social media has a role to play in project management?

Yes, and for different reasons. Some of the benefits of social media in project management include improved collaboration, cost savings, best practice sharing, and networking.

How do you think social media can be utilized to promote and advance project management in Africa?

Through our project management blogs; sharing of project success stories; creating LinkedIn interest groups; leveraging Twitter, podcasts, videos, Google+, and PM Flashblog initiatives.

How would you rate the level of awareness of project management in Africa?

Project management as a designation will contribute to the development of career paths; and also through promoting continuous professional development. In South Africa, we have a national conference by end September with theme: Growing project management in Africa. (See events page for more details.)

Wow, that’s good, and there’s also a national conference in Nigeria by September tagged “Project Management Development in Nigeria” being organized by ProMaCon.

That’s good for raising the awareness of value of project management in Africa.

What advice would you give to a Project Manager who’s planning on incorporating social media in his/her project management profession?

For use of social media on projects, you need a social strategy that’s specific to your organisation’s business objectives, challenges, and culture. You also need to have an adaptable, step-by-step, ongoing formula to bring social media into projects. You can also use social media to build your professional project management career by having a strategy with tactics to communicate on each social media channel.

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August 6, 2014February 13, 2022 Linky

Project Manager – How to Integrate Social Media with your Projects

When considering social media for use as a communication tool on projects, there are many things to think about:

the purpose of using social media to manage projects
the benefits of adopting social media on projects
best practices when integrating social media with projects
privacy and security concerns
which social media channels to select
challenges in the workplace

This can be quite over-whelming. The purpose of this article, is to answer some questions about social media for project managers and to direct you to good resources for more information, education and implementation.

A fellow project management blogger, Tony Adams, summarised it very well when he said:

“social media is about investing the time and energy into developing long-lasting, personal relationships with your network.”

This applies whether we want to position ourselves as Thought Leaders or to connect with our project teams and stakeholders.

Let’s look at the questions that people need answers to before they will consider social media for projects.

How do you manage the information overload?

Too many communication tools can result in more interruptions and therefore more distractions, so you need to think about how to manage the various streams of information that social media tools open up to you in order to avoid information overload. It is a matter of trusting your team members and not having to monitor all conversations that are going on.

When it comes to instant messaging, you can store the output from chats. Your IM tool may have settings that sends the chat to you as an email after the session ends, so check if this is turned on and use it if it is available. These can then become project documents and can be stored and archived in the same way as meeting minutes.

Then there’s the matter of email (present on all projects) and then adding more social media channels on top of that. Consider using social media channels as pull communication where teams need to visit the project site in order to find and share project information that would benefit all. And publish the messages that are discussed on the social site, because people often need to hear/see the same thing several times before they believe it; so using several channels to repeat the same (consistent) message is appropriate. Don’t create confusion by saying different things on different channels.

What about the security implication concerns that many companies have?

Most people have smartphones with internet access and they can access social media whether the company allows it or not. It is better for a company to monitor and control access through policies and education by training them about the purpose of using selected social media channels.

Manage security by using tools that you can host in-house behind your firewall so they are not available to external audiences e.g. Yammer, Wikis. Also use tools that enable you to export your data when you need to or when the project is over.

However, if you cannot address security concerns adequately, don’t use social media tools if it doesn’t make sense or puts you in breach of agreements or policies.

How will you activate project managers to integrate social media onto their projects?

Based on a better understanding of what platforms are available and how to use them for projects, you can determine and select the most appropriate tools to bring social software onto your projects.

Then make social media part of your communications plan and use it consistently with your team members to achieve the expected results.

September 17, 2013September 17, 2013 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management – Part II: Webinars, Slideshare, Podcasts

For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will look at Webinars, Slideshare and others and how it is adopted in project management.

Part I of this article, can be found here:

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management.

Part II: Facebook and Yammer

Part II: Blogs and Twitter

Part II: LinkedIn and Google+

Webinars

A webinar is essentially 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.This is very useful to present a topic to virtual teams attending from different parts of the country or even the world.

Many webinars are hosted weekly covering useful project management topics and contributions from people in the profession. An example is Roeder Consulting for free monthly webinars:

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. Numerous project management topics are discussed on podcasts that you can download and for existing PMP’s this can count towards PDU’s.

SlideShare.net

SlideShare is a social network site that contains PowerPoint presentations and other documents that users create and upload. Searching on “project management” will find thousands of presentations about project management.

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. One of the more compelling features 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. Wikis are flexible and can serve as the backbone for a small team’s shared notebook.

YouTube

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. 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.

Refer to the article about 10 social media tools available to project managers for more details about the above mentioned platforms.

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September 11, 2013September 11, 2016 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management – Part II:LinkedIn, Google+

By Linky van der Merwe

For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will look at LinkedIn and Google+ and how it is adopted in project management.

Part I of this article, can be found here:

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management.

Part II: Facebook and Yammer

Part II: Blogs and Twitter

As a social networking site for professionals, LinkedIn will help you find experts in project management. There are many project management related interest groups on LinkedIn which you may join. Add yourself to groups and communities that share common interests with you or your business. Then follow and contribute to the discussions. This way you can connect with as many project professionals as you like including experts who can answer questions and provide advice.

When I perform a search for project management groups, there are almost 7000 results, which can be narrowed down by adding more filters. Groups with the most members are displayed at the top and the number of active discussions are also shown.

With LinkedIn you can build your brand and profile to share with others, search for work, get valuable information about searching for work, and expand your network. If you are not actively participating here as a project manager, I encourage you to read “Benefits of using LinkedIn”.

Google+

Most people have a Google profile and it’s very easy to join Google+. There are multiple interest groups to join discussions, watch webinars or even join Google hang-outs.

Google Hang-outs

With Google hang-out you connect with your colleagues, communities and customers via a video chat. Google Hang Outs is a great way you can have face to face conversations both privately and publicly. Collaborate in real-time, share ideas and even do interviews. You can also record the conversation so it can be viewed at a later time

There are many project managers, Pages relating to project management, as well as PM communities. Use Google + to share posts, interesting links, photos, videos or perhaps events for project managers.

SEO value and Google Authorship

If you or your company has an online presence, there is also value in having a Google+ account for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. If you are a content creator, like I am, you can claim Google Authorship. It is really simple:

Create a Google+ Profile and upload a high quality headshot and fill out the profile information.
Go to plus.google.com/authorship, sign up with your email and click on the verification link that Google will send you.

The biggest advantage of doing this is if people search for a particular content, your Google Plus profile will be displayed including your photos and a brief description of who you are. If they like your content, there is a high probability people will add you to their circles to allow them to receive updates from you or your business.

Let us know in the Comments if you’re using LinkedIn or Google+ for your projects and how well that is working for you.

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September 9, 2013February 28, 2022 Linky

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management – Part II: Blogging and Twitter

By Linky van der Merwe

For most Project Management professionals social media is already part of their lives. This article will take a closer look at social media platforms, Blogs and Twitter and how they are adopted in project management.

Part I of this article, can be found here:

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management.

Practical use for Social Media in Project Management-Part II: Facebook Yammer

Blogging

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. In the project setting, it is the equivalent to a project notebook.

There are a number of ways blogs can be used to enhance the success of a project.

Project documentation – you can put all the project documentation on a blog.
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.
Interesting pictures – 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.

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.

Micro-blogging

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 also permits your “tweets” to be protected. As with a blog, the tweets appear on your homepage in a long chronological stream, with the most recent comments at the top.

There are several ways to use Twitter to help you manage a project.

Project management articles – use search to find good articles about specific project management topics and best practices.
#Hashtags are used to help index the subject matter of your tweet. 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. This is a simple way that users can quickly filter for only tweets about specific subjects. You can also search for tweets by typing the hashtag in the Twitter search box. Other useful hashtags for project managers are: #projectmanager, #pmp, #project, #msproject, #project2010, and #pm. Also check #PMChat for Tweetups every Friday for an innovative way for project managers to get answers to project management questions and obtain different perspectives. Source:
Team hastags – a project team can decide on its own hashtags for the projects they’re working on. If your team is working on a business application project, you could decide on a hashtag to use across Twitter, such as #busapp. This will work for projects where security is less of a concern.

Twitter 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. You can make a list of other users who are also in project management. Every time you follow a person on Twitter who is also a project manager, you add them to your list. By following this process you will soon connect with project managers from all over the world who you can follow and collaborate with. Or create a list for your team relating to the project you are working on. Send them the URL of the list so they can see who you’ve added.

Consider subscribing to other people’s lists. My Projectmanagement list contains 316 members and a number of subscribers. Now I can look at Tweets from project managers on my list and the lists that I’m subscribed to and see all the latest updates at a glance. I can retweet, share them with my followers or reply and collaborate.

Let us know in the Comments if you’re using Blogs or Twitter for your projects and how well that is working for you.

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to read the rest of the articles in this series.

Social Media on projects

Customer Service Channel

Social Media Customer Service in Practice

How do you manage the information overload?

What about the security implication concerns that many companies have?

How will you activate project managers to integrate social media onto their projects?

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-3093" alt="Webinar" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.virtualprojectconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Webinar.jpg?resize=179%2C221" width="179" height="221" />Webinars

Podcasts

WIKI

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-3095" alt="YouTube" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.virtualprojectconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/YouTube.jpg?resize=267%2C189" width="267" height="189" />YouTube

LinkedIn

Google+

Google Hang-outs

SEO value and Google Authorship

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-3058" alt="Twitter for project managers" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.virtualprojectconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/twitter-for-pms.jpg?resize=220%2C200" width="220" height="200" />Micro-blogging

Twitter Lists

Webinars

YouTube

Micro-blogging