You can support your project's planning and performance with social media. Project success depends heavily on accurate and timely information sharing, productive interpersonal relationships among the team and with other project audience members, and effective collaboration among team members.
Social media can facilitate one-way (going from the sender to the received with no opportunity for clarification or confirmation) and two-way (going from the sender to the receiver and from the receiver back to the sender) information sharing. In addition, it can support passive (collecting existing data on a subject) and active (asking for and receiving certain data from an audience) data gathering.
The table presents examples of instances where social media can be used to facilitate essential communication and relationship building activities in the various stages of a project’s life cycle.
Life Cycle Phase | Information Sharing Activity | Social Media to Use |
---|---|---|
Starting the project | Finding out about project subject matter Finding out about similar projects Making initial announcement of project |
Blogs, podcasts, wikis, webinars, social networking sites Wikis, social networking sites Social networking sites |
Organizing and preparing | Announcing project planning is starting Exploring project issues Finding lessons learned from similar projects Recruiting project audiences Recruiting team members |
Social networking sites Wikis, social networking sites, blogs Wikis, social networking sites, blogs Social networking sites Social networking sites |
Carrying out the work | Announcing project kickoff Finding out about team members Exploring project issues Writing progress reports Revising project plan |
Social networking sites Social networking sites Wikis, social networking sites, blogs, webinars Social networking sites, wikis Social networking sites |
Closing the project | Announcing project completion Recording lessons learned |
Social networking sites, wikis Social networking sites, blogs |