Social media is slowly but surely creeping into the world of project management; with two thirds of the project management profession using social media in some way in their role* There is however still some way to go before organisations fully explore and embrace tools that are used directly within the project environment for use by the project manager, team and wider stakeholders to improve project communications and ultimately improve project 
delivery.
Social Media for Project Managers from Elizabeth Harrin is a book that predominantly looks at why organisations – and project managers – should be thinking about social media in a project environment and goes some way to telling you – the project manager – how to go about implementing social media on your projects.
Kicking off with an overview of what social media is and an introduction to this newer way of working; it quickly becomes apparent that there are numerous benefits for seriously looking at social media and how it can help increase communication and collaboration in projects. In fact the benefits are scattered throughout the book and I think this is important (just like any project – are the benefits and objectives for doing the project in the first place clear) and serves as a useful reminder because the book doesn’t make light of the fact that this could be a very difficult “project” to implement in your organisation.
For readers who are unfamiliar with social media tools there is a whole section giving the lowdown on which tools are specifically useful in a project environment and a couple of chapters that remind us again about the importance of communication across the lifecycle and in managing teams.
The book then moves onto the nitty gritty of how to bring in social media into your project – in other words – treating it like any other project. This is part step-by-step guide and part “have you thought about this?” collection of questions and answers. The book takes you through the planning, implementation and ongoing management of social media throughout the project lifecycle and whilst that might sound like a big deal, there are also alternatives which focus on just taking a “chunk of social media” at a time, starting small and building your way up.
In these early days of social media it is perhaps not surprising that many employees still don’t have access to these tools due to their organisation failing to explore the benefits to the workforce fully or being put off advocating the wider use of these tools in the workplace due to security or disciplinary reasons* Harrin covers off these concerns with chapters; “Winning over Management” and “Warnings from Cyberspace” which for many people considering buying this book may well want to dip into these sections first.
I think this book has two audiences and I recommend the book to both; the first, those project managers that are dipping their toes in the social media waters for the first time and want to understand how social media could change the way they run their projects in the future and the second; those social media savvy project managers who need/want to be able to introduce tools but need a heads up on how effectively manage a social media project – getting these tools embedded in their organisation which may be sceptical.
*Figure taken from the latest Benchmark Report from Arras People
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Lindsay, thanks for taking the time to review my book!