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This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for the PMI-ACP® Exam:

Bill Dow, PMP, ITIL, CSM - Author

You don’t necessarily have to manage a social media project in order to recognize the benefits of using the tools of social media project management. Furthermore, being a social media project manager is more than simply publishing a few project updates on Facebook.

In order to really reap the benefits, social media has to be a fully integrated and planned part of your project’s communications management strategy.

How to use and when to use social media on your project is at the center of my discussion with Bill Dow (https://www.linkedin.com/in/billdow) whose book Project Management Communication Tools includes a whole section on social media tools for our projects.

In our discussion, Bill and I will review the following:

• Mapping social media tools to project communication tools
• Determining which tools to use on your projects
• Which tools can we use in which project phase or process group
• When to bring on a social media expert to help

Episode Transcript

Podcast Introduction

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello and welcome to Episode number 327. This is the Project Management Podcast at www.pm-podcast.com. I'm Cornelius Fichtner. Welcome.

You don't necessarily have to manage a social media project in order to recognize the benefits of using the tools of social media project management. Furthermore, being a social media project manager is also more than simply publishing a few project updates on Facebook. In order to really reap the benefits, social media has to be a fully integrated and planned part of your project's communication management strategy. How to use and when to use social media on your projects is at the center of my discussion with Bill Dow whose book, Project Management Communication Tools, includes a whole section on social media tools for our projects. Are you PMP® Certified and want to earn 37 PDUs quickly and for less than $5 per PDU? That's no problem with the Agile PrepCast. It not only prepares you for your PMI-ACP exam, but also qualifies for a ton of PMP PDUs. Log on at www.agileprepcast.com/pdu for the details. In our discussion, Jeff and I will review mapping social media tools to project communication tools, determining which tools to use on your projects. Then, we also look at which tools can we use in which project phase or in which process group, and also when to bring on a social media expert for help. Finally, before we get going with this interview, we are of course giving away one copy of the book on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pmpodcast. I'll give you all the details in the closing remarks after the interview is over. And now, in a 140 characters or less, how much are you looking forward to enjoying this interview?

Podcast Interview

Cornelius Fichtner: Hello, Bill. Welcome back to the program.

Bill Dow: Thank you. Great to be here.

Cornelius Fichtner: So, the new version of your book is out. How much time did you invest into doing the update?

Bill Dow: Well, it's a quite a bit of time. I would say maybe 12 to 14 months of every night and every weekend, just around the clock.

Cornelius Fichtner: Wow, okay. And let's see, the book that we spoke about last time was called The Project Communications Bible, was that it, right?

Bill Dow: Yes, that was it.

Cornelius Fichtner: This one is now Project Communication Tools. What's the big difference between the two?

Bill Dow: We actually added a ton of new sections and chapters. We've added Agile Project Management, we've added a number of communication tools around Agile. Meetings, Agile Tools, Agile Meetings, burn-down charts, just a ton of activity there. We've actually added social media as well. Social Media has come up in great bounds from 2008 when we first did the book to now. And so, we've added social media and project management. We've added a brand new topic of Project Management Business Intelligence. And this is really around all the data that project managers have and how do we create dashboards and what do we do with all that data within all the tools that we have. And then finally, we've added some PMBOK questions where we stood just to project communications. So we actually added 10 questions and answers, of course, of the most, you know, the tools that where the questions actually will come up most often. So, it gives the reader a good feel for what some of the communication questions would look like.

Cornelius Fichtner: Right. Out of those four, which of these proved to be the hardest to write about and why?

Bill Dow: I would say the Social Media.

Cornelius Fichtner: Really? Good that we're talking about it a little more afterwards.

Bill Dow: Yeah. The reason is, is that social media, there's just not a lot out there. Everyone is trying to do so much in social media and there's tools popping up all the time and project managers are just champing up a bit to use it. And so, when I was doing my research and really looking around and stuff, there's just wasn't a lot out there. And so, I think I added a pretty neat spin and a pretty good spin on how project managers should use it. And I've documented that all within that chapter.

Cornelius Fichtner: Okay. So I loved the fact that you are covering social media in the book because I, myself, have a social media presentation and I travel the world with that presentation, How Do You Use Social Media on Your Projects? Why did you decide to include that topic in the book? What was the driving factor behind it?