Silicon Beach Training Blog » social media

How to Improve Yourself as a Writer

Guest Author — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:30:04 +0000

Great writers have different styles and different methods. However, when writing for the internet (especially when starting out) there are some standards you should aim to follow to improve the quality of your content and increase readership. Famous authors may be able to get away with a very personal style and a dependence on alcohol but your blog isn’t going to last very long if you don’t make it internet friendly. If you are serious about starting a popular blog then we recommend our Blogging & Content Marketing course to get you started. We also have WordPress courses if you would like to delve deeper into creating blog sites and SEO training and Social Media training to ensure your blog posts are searchable and shareable.

This article is written by McKinley Plowman, accountants in Perth, who provide business and personal financial advice.

Written communication remains one of the most important skills for a person to possess. Writing has allowed us to communicate precise ideas that are able to be digested by the reader at their own pace. Most importantly, writing has given man the ability to communicate outside of their mortal life. It has, in a way, pushed mankind into a post-human state.

With this said it is disturbing that a lot of the population write poorly. I’ll run through some ways you can improve your writing and will focus specifically on writing in a business setting.

Use smaller words if possible

Large words sap energy from a piece of writing. Many people believe that using a big word will make them appear more intelligent to the reader and hence improve their status. This is partly true but influence doesn’t come from convincing people you are smart, it comes from making people like you.

For an illustration of how this works consider this statement.

“I met a great man at a cocktail party, when he spoke to me I felt like he was the smartest person in the room. I then met an even greater man at that party; he made me feel like I was the smartest person in the room”

By writing in a manner that doesn’t send a reader rushing to the dictionary every now and then, you have a much better chance of communicating your written ideas to a reader.

Gain some more readers by entering our blogging contest! If you win, not only will you receive a limited edition pack of Top SEO Trumps but we will also promote your article and your blog!

Break some rules

There is no need to follow all the rules of structure that you were taught at school. This is especially true with internet writing. Single word sentences are OK. Very short paragraphs are fine too.

The typical paragraph of 8-12 sentences is mostly too long and creates large blocks of text that are hard to read. If you’re reading this now, I credit it to the idea that I have not made large paragraphs which tend to scare the reader away in this modern age of very short attention spans.

Get a lot of sleep

Writing requires creativity. Being tired or hung over is the nemesis of creative thought. You should be getting at least 8 hours of good sleep each night. Without being well rested, ideas will not come to you and you will more likely suffer from writer’s block.

Write about what you are passionate about

My most expressive and readable writing comes from writing about something I care about. Ideas flow more readily onto the page and people are more likely to enjoy reading what was written. If you are finding it difficult to write about something, it will also probably be difficult to read.

Make sure you’re aware of the fine line between inspiration and plagiarism. Getting an idea and stealing an idea are very different actions.

The simple solution for this is to research what you are writing a bit more. Typically writing about things you don’t know well are the most painful experiences.

Excessive Words

Don’t pad out sentences with catchphrases and corporate speak. Writing should be punchy and to the point otherwise the text will be boring and hard to read. I’ve seen corporate memos that are written using three times the number of words that are necessary to communicate the idea.

Will Twitter finally sink the idea of a new luxury ship fit for a Queen?

Guest Author — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:30:42 +0000

In this guest post, James Christie of Social Media agency No Pork Pies looks at how Twitter has become so influential in today’s society, even having a say into the planning of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The Royal Yacht Britannia: now permanently moored in Edinburgh. Picture by Ian Mackay

In April 2009, it was announced that the British public would now be allowed to follow the Royal Family on Twitter at @BritishMonarchy (it now has 280,790 followers).

Commenting on the development, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “The Queen has been advised that it’s up and running but there won’t be any members of the Royal Family tweeting.”

A year later, the Queen ‘joined’ Facebook. “The Queen has approved the decision – she knows all about Facebook,” an aide assured us.

With this supposed knowledge of social media and micro-blogging sites, our sovereign is sure to be aware of how social network communities have reacted to the idea that a new royal yacht should be built to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The idea was first floated by the Daily Mail; the newspaper launched a campaign to build a luxurious new yacht in October 2011. The Mail backed the campaign with several lengthy articles and an impressive artist’s impression of what the yacht might look like (complete with a theatre and a deep sea submersible). However, the campaign sank without trace until 16^th January 2012 when The Guardian published a leaked letter from Education Secretary from Michael Gove.

Gove’s letter suggested that: “in spite, and perhaps because of the austere times” it would be an “excellent” idea to investigate the idea of a new royal yacht.

Much of the reaction to Gove’s suggestion has been covered by the Guardian and the Mail. But could it be that the real barometer of public opinion to the issue can be found in cyberspace? While Gove’s letter was a lengthy affair, many voters have given their reaction to it in far-more succinct 140-word tweets.

Brandwatch history of mentions of ‘Royal Yacht’

By using social media monitoring tool Brandwatch it is possible to see that the number of mentions of the phrase ‘Royal Yacht’ on the internet spiked dramatically on January 16^th when Gove’s letter was first published.

There were 8,720 mentions of ‘Royal Yacht during the period 11^th January to 24^th January 2012. Brandwatch’s sentiment-monitoring software identified that:

13 per cent of mentions were positive
22 per cent were negative
65 per cent were neutral

Tellingly, Twitter hosted the most number of mentions (84 per cent) with Facebook hosting 12 per cent and ‘other’ (online newspapers, forums and blogs) accounting for five per cent.

Twitter-users tended to be more negative than people expressing their opinion on other platforms; 43 per cent of tweets were negative, compared to 22 per cent of all tweets.

The pro-yacht argument was represented on Twitter by re-tweets of supportive articles such as a Daily Telegraph piece by Graeme Archer which insisted that “the monarch is a defining landmark of the country and should be treated as such”.

Some typical negative tweets included re-tweets of a spoof article entitled “Royal yacht plans scrapped in favour of Diamond Jubilee pedalo” and a comment which asked the government:

“Will you be using this year’s cohort of unemployed school leavers to help build the royal yacht?”

Sentiment about the Diamond Jubilee

Adverse reaction to the yacht seems to have caused a slight rise in negative sentiment regarding the Diamond Jubilee (the red line on the chart above). However positive sentiment (the green line) also increased on January 16^th and both levels have now reverted to the level which existed before Gove’s letter was leaked.

Sentiment surrounding Michael Gove

Which brings us to Michael Gove; Gove had the highest ratio of negative sentiment of all three topics (the other two being ‘Royal Yacht’ and ‘Diamond Jubilee’) but perhaps unpopularity is just the normal lot of a coalition government minister.

The Guardian – rather than the Daily Mail which launched the original pro-yacht campaign – hosted more mentions (2.4 per cent) of the topics than any other sites bar Twitter and Facebook.

While the Brandwatch monitoring tool does give a neat breakdown of where and when conversations surrounding the yacht are taking place, it can’t answer one mystery relating to the idea of a ‘Diamond’ boat.

How would such a ship be built in time for the start of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June?

James Christie is an Editor at Social Media Agency No Pork Pies.

Top SEO Trumps Blogging Competition

Heather Buckley — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:48:24 +0000

The great Top SEO Trumps Blog Off has begun!

We have been slaving away creating the top SEO Game of the Decade. To get your hands on one of these limited edition Top SEO Trumps packs we are inviting you to take part in our Top SEO Trumps Blog Off!

Here’s a preview of how the cards look:

Simply write a blog post that meets the conditions below to be in for a chance to win.

There are 46 Top SEO Faces from the SEO world, each ranked by:

Popularity on the web
Twitter followers
Google+ contacts
Fanciablility (we are keeping our judges a secret for this category)
Geek Cred

Can you guess who is hiding behind Danny Sullivan? If you can’t guess or want to see the other 45 Top SEOs then you can follow all those who made it into to pack by creating your own SEO circle from this one we made earlier, just click on the image to view or add this circle in Google+:

35 Limited Edition Top SEO Trumps packs are up for grabs.

Anyone can enter: SEOs, marketing people, social media specialists, bloggers, content marketers, and students, anyone who thinks they can write a good blog.

There are so many ways of winning that the playing field is wide open, there is a really good chance of winning so it’s worth a go. As all great SEO’s and Content marketers know, generating great content is just par for the course anyway. What have you got to lose?

Not only that, if you are one of our 35 finalists we will publicise your fine post using our many social media accounts, and link to it from all of our resources and blogs, as well as on our own well ranked site, so it would be good for your SEO too.

All you have to do is what you do best: write a great blog post.

How to win

Write a blog post that contains a link either to one of these links
http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/seo-top-trumps OR http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/seo/
Tweet a link to your post to: @sbttraining with the message: “My SEO Trumps entry” and the Hashtag #seotoptrumps

It’s as easy as that!

For example if this was my entry I would tweet:

@sbttraining My Top SEO Trumps entry http://www.siliconbeachtraining.co.uk/blog/seo-top-trumps (or shortened version) #seotoptrumps

You can publish your blog post anywhere (not necessarily on your own blog) as long as you identify yourself as the author somewhere in the post and tweet the link with hashtag as above.

After the closing date April 1st 2012

Votes will be counted and verified and prizes will go to the authors of the winners of the following categories:

The 5 funniest posts
The 5 most original posts
The 5 most useful posts
The top 5 posts that drive the most traffic to the destination link.
The 5 top most liked posts on Facebook – where that information is available
The 5 most +1’s on Google Plus
The 5 most tweeted posts – where that information is available

Good luck and get blogging!

Become a future top SEO trump with our many SEO related courses. SEO training will provide you with the best practice approach to optimising websites and content for higher rankings, you can then use the knowledge learnt on our Social Media course to market your website and build strong brand identity. If you want to measure how your site is doing (and your social media efforts) then Google Analytics training is essential, while Advanced Google Analytics training is available for those who already use it on a regular basis. Don’t forget, we also now provide Content Marketing training – great for building brand and author identity whilst gaining valuable backlinks!

Why Should You Start Content Marketing?

Daniel Twigg — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:53:49 +0000

We have now added Content Marketing to our Blogging Training course to create the mighty Blogging and Content Marketing Training course, so you can get a head start on your internet marketing endeavours.

It can be tough to get your brand, company or website noticed on the big World Wide Web. Fierce competition for search engine rankings and SEO dominance is rife between websites gunning for the same keywords and with the same general target audience; so what can you do to get yourself to stand out from the crowd?

Currently, one of the most effective methods of generating interest from users and building up back links to appease the search engine lords is content marketing. This form of marketing has many advantages and uses which should be explored by anyone looking to extend their website’s visibility, outreach and exposure.

Why should I do it myself?

The internet is made of content. It’s what people use it for; to find useful information, tips and entertainment. By creating your own content you can write about the topics your website, blog or company specialise in from as many angles as you can think of. Doing this not only gives you more searchable content to be found via search engines it also gives you the opportunity to stamp your authority on a subject, working your way into becoming an expert in your field that people will look to for knowledge, answers and cutting edge info.

However, if you aren’t ready to put yourself forward as an expert just yet, content marketing still has some valuable other uses which when used properly will help improve your site’s traffic and exposure to new users.

If you would like to find out more about content marketing then have to look at our post on Guest Blogging and Great Places to Post Your Content, or read on to find out more about how blogging and content marketing can benefit you.

Guest Blogging

Writers have been creating guest content for other sites for some time now, giving writers the opportunity to share their knowledge and writing style with a new audience, as well as being able to get a link to their own website. This link is useful for a few reasons, namely it allows the reader to hop straight to your site if they like your content and also the back link can work in your favour when it comes to SEO and search engine rankings, especially if it is coming from a website with a high authority or page rank.

Accepting guest posts can work in your favour too. Search engines like sites that update their content regularly, so posting relevant and useful content from others can take the strain off of keeping up with the demand of writing as well as giving you to post articles on topics you may not be as knowledgeable in.

You don’t even have to approach sites directly now to enquire about guest blogging. With guest post sharing and distribution sites such as My Blog Guest making the process of bidding for content and choosing who you want to publish your own offerings far easier than ever before.

Going Viral

Another major advantage of making your own content is sharing. Social media sites have made sharing content so easy these days that if you have something that is timely, unique or of exceptionally high quality you can find your content being shared all over the web, hopefully going viral. Combine this with the fact that Google’s new Search plus Your World search algorithm weighs heavily in favour of popular, well shared content on Google’s social network, Google+. So this method can boost your search engine rankings as well as bring in interest from a new audience.

Easy on the Wallet

Content Marketing also has another big advantage; it’s extremely cost effective. If you are creating your own articles or accepting guest posts the cost is extremely low, if not free (except for staffing costs!) Bear in mind that your content will also hang around for far longer than any advertising campaign you may choose to run, so you are likely to see a far better ROI on these efforts.

All of these benefits make content marketing an extremely attractive marketing method, which is why we have updated our Blogging and Content Marketing Training course so you can learn all of the latest techniques to teach you how to make high quality, sought after content.

Social Media Marketing, It’s Christmas Every Day

Heather Buckley — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:45:06 +0000

Christmas Cards – the first form of mass communication?

Sir Henry Cole commissioned the first Christmas card in London in 1843. He was a busy and rich businessman who had tired of the practice of writing letters to friends and family every festive season (which was traditional then for those who could afford postage costs).

He came up with the idea and commissioned illustrator John Callcott Horsley to design it. The illustration of a family with a child drinking wine proved controversial but turned out to be a phenomenal success. How many business ideas still remain popular after 100 years?

First Christmas card

So what has that got to do with Social Media?

Well, Cole had helped introduce the Penny Post three years earlier. This allowed people living in Great Britain and Ireland to send letters weighing 1/2 ounce or less to anywhere within the kingdom for one penny. Sir Henry Cole had played a leading role in pushing for the Penny Post, believing cheap and easy communication was needed for the growth of business. The masses took advantage of this to send Christmas cards; it was no longer only for the rich and aristocratic. So you see the Christmas card was the first commercial mass communication system, designed as a way to offer seasonal greetings without having to write out hundreds of personal messages.

Make something special and original

How do you feel when someone makes something just for you? A homemade Christmas card, a hand knitted scarf, a Christmas bouquet made from hand picked holly tied with a crimson satin ribbon. You feel special. Successful social media marketing is all about making people feel special, it’s about appealing to what makes us human, it’s about personalisation, connectivity and conversation.

Google, we know, likes fresh content, but fresh doesn’t just mean hot off the press, fresh means different, unique, quirky and new. Writing really fresh content is more much more effective than rewriting old ideas and quick fix posts, have a bit more fun. If you spend more time on coming up with original ideas that will appeal to your customers, your gift to them if you like, they will be much more likely to share, enjoy and remember you.

I’m not just talking about your own web content. With content marketing becoming the most effective way to link build, SEO companies, marketing professionals and individuals are all jumping on the band wagon, churning out the same old content, anything quick and easy just to get the links out quickly. Link building has always been a tedious and monotonous task, but there is another way…

Christmas is about being generous

As I have already mentioned, content marketing should not be the same as article spinning. The real secret to great content marketing is to give away your best writing. I know the feeling you get when you have just polished off that great piece of writing, you want to keep it for yourself. But wait, give generously and you will reap rewards. If you write great content and give it away, you can earn respect from great bloggers with attractive ranking and a wide social following. Remember, if your article is really that great then people are going to share it and the pages with the most social shares will have the best page rank and authority according to Google.

Think about those who receive your generous gifts

Forget the boring old gift sets, step away from the socks! One of the most common social media mistakes is to forget about your audience. Think hard about what your target audience, your clients and customers, really want. Give them something useful, give them something that will make them laugh and brighten their day, or give them something that will help them achieve something. Give them something they will unwrap and enjoy, not something to chuck in the useless gift pile.

Christmas is a time for Sharing

Come to Brighton for your Training - Image by Brighton Photographer Katariina Jarvinen - http://www.lighttrick.co.uk/

Don’t just share your own content; share the best content you find on the web with others. Indentify those influencers and share their content, that way they will be more inclined to share yours.

Sprinkle with glitter

Create content that sparkles. Take notes of things that catch your eye, what was it about that article that made you want to read or share it. Think of catchy titles, sparkling wit, entertainment value, originality.

Images are also important, even those you give away with your guest posts. A brilliant image will sell your article. I use Photoshop all the time to create images to fit my subject. I often create caricatures of the people I’m referencing. Deck your posts with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la.

Happy Christmas form Silicon Beach Training ;)

Why not treat yourself to one of our Social Media and SEO Courses in Brighton for the new year. Maybe even a Photoshop course to spruce up your fantastic content, or an iPhone or Android App Training course to supercharge your marketing . After all that virtuous generosity and giving don’t forget to treat yourself!

Why Inspiration Should Never Party With Plagiarism

Heather Buckley — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:04:28 +0000

Image by gnuckx on flickr

If you are regularly guest blogging and publishing content in order to get quality back-links and provide fresh content for your website, then we think you are doing a great service for your SEO and Social Media strategy.

After the lastest Google freshness update, content marketing has become the most powerful weapon in your artillery, the most respected authorities in the world of SEO are all agreed on this one. Looking for the best and most popular posts on the web is a must if you want to keep up with what’s hot and what’s popular (this is all important for those vital media shares) but what is acceptable and what amounts to simple plagiarism? It’s not just a moral dilema, Google will penalise duplicate content.

If you need more help with your SEO and social media then we offer some great deals on SEO Training, Google Analytics courses and social media training. Below Christopher Fielden, a published author, offers his opinions on the subject of plagiarism - all in his own words!

Plagiarism Definition

If you nick someone else’s idea and pretend it is your own, that’s plagiarism.

Inspiration Definition

If you see something which tickles your imagination enough to write an original story, that’s inspiration.

Examples of the Differences Between Plagiarism & Inspiration

If you went to see Lord of the Rings in the cinema and then decided it ‘inspired’ you to write a book about Rodeo Shaggins and his landscape designer, Jan-Flys Ganges, who discover a magical toe ring which has been imbued with the wrath of the dark lord Flower-on and will bring an end to all that is peaceful by covering the land with the unholy stench of ghastly garlic gases unless the ring is transported across Middle Birth and thrown into the fiery belly of Mount Bloom, that is stealing someone else’s ideas. That is plagiarism.

If you watch the films and think that Gollum looks a little like a hairless baboon, and then, from this initial innocent thought, your mental roller-coaster launches into an unexpected creative rampage and you start imagining an interstellar spaceport called Gut Thunder Five, a paradise (forced to be located on an extremely dangerous planet as it is the only viable refuelling location for the Galactic Warp Pathways in Quadrant Dangly Giblets) surrounded by a rainforest ruled by hairless baboons who threaten the existence of the universe itself because, once a millennium, they are able to unleash sonic mind melting music from their rather disturbingly coloured posteriors; so powerful a sound that every creature capable of cognitive thought in the known galaxy has its sanity threatened by the indescribable beauty of their cacophonous rumblings and may end up driven mad by the music’s hypnotic power and thus engage on a kill crazy rampage resulting in the end of all life, that, dear reader who has shown the will and grit of a martyr and thus made it to the end of this ridiculously long sentence, is inspiration.

As you can see, inspiration does not always result in good ideas, but any ideas you come up with should be entirely original.

Plagiarism Checkers

If in doubt, you can use plagiarism checkers like Copyscape to make sure your work is unique. While these can’t really recognise if ideas or plots have been stolen, they can see if content has been copied. So you can pop your work through these checkers to see if some evil internet bandit has stolen your stories and pretended they are their own brain children.

If you are a Victim of Plagiarism

If you have been a victim of plagiarism, I’d suggest visiting plagiarism.org where you can find out about the various courses of action available to you. They also offer free resources, facts, solutions and support for writers who have had their words stolen.

Written by Christopher Fielden, a published author who enjoys sharing writing advice with other writers and using his own short stories as case studies to illustrate how to get published.

Facebook Security Issues Addressed

Craig Charley — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:37:08 +0000

UPDATE: Facebook Timeline has now gone live! Use our Complete Guide to Facebook Timeline to change your privacy settings so that you don’t unwittingly show off some embarrassing antics from the past! We’ve also included a free Cover Photo Photoshop Template Download and a guide to the new features.

While the infographic doesn’t address issues with default sharing settings that could potential lead to embarrassing info going public, it does reveal a number of methods Facebook does to protect your privacy that you won’t be aware of, charting the security measures you go through from logging in to going offline.

These measures are all focused on reducing spam – Facebook claims less than 4% of shared content on the platform is spam – and protecting your account from hackers. Personal favourites include LinkScanner which automatically checks links for spam when they’re posted on Facebook and the Trusted Friends feature to help you log in to your account when you forget your password or have had your account hacked.

The Trusted Friends feature involves picking some close friends (remember they will be responsible for helping you log in so pick wisely!) who can send you a unique code when you’re locked out – a bit like handing a spare house key to a trusted neighbour just in case. Although this key they can’t use to access your Facebook so it’s not like handing out your password.

We’ll have to see how well Facebook’s security holds up on Saturday if the Anonymous threat to Facebook turns out to be real. Interestingly the reason behind the attack is due to Facebook’s privacy issues!

The only feature we think is missing is a way to address public chain posts which are remarkably similar to the old chain emails, with messages such as ‘If you don’t pass this on to 7 people you will die’ and ‘pass this on 6 friends and you’ll meet the love of your life at midnight’. The current trend is to hide them as text in photos so they’re not picked up by filters. Really this is an issue that has only appeared with the introduction of public sharing and is demonstrating how Facebook is evolving from a private platform of content sharing with friends to a public one where the aim is to get your post shared across the world; and that is why Facebook needs such a tight security process.

Public sharing on Facebook is making it a marketing dream come true – if you want to learn how to make the biggest impact on Social Media then come on our fantastic Social Media Training course, taught by the sea side in sunny Brighton, Sussex. You can even take it with a number of related courses including SEO and blogging by choosing one of our Social Media Packages.

Here is the infographic in full:

Infographic courtesy of Facebook. Edited image courtesy of marko8904 on Flickr.

Using Social Media for Project Management

Andy Trainer — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:52:23 +0000

Social Media Networks provide effective tools for Project Managers

“Did you know that we provide some of the best PRINCE2 training courses in the UK? Don’t forget to ask your provider about class sizes before booking. We pride ourselves on quality, we’ll never pack you in! “

As a Project manager you need to keep in touch with messages from clients, stakeholders, developers and team members, arranging meetings, keeping up with project updates. This takes a lot of time, in fact you could say that this makes up most of your job. There are emails to check and send, phone calls to make, meetings to attend, information and reports to chase.

Having done all the above, you then need to update your project plan, communicate the updates to senior managers and stakeholders, creating reports, communicate the progress of the project. Knowing the importance of personal relations, you probably wish you had more time to talk face to face with important clients, but your time gets eaten away with endless e-mails, phone calls and meetings. Not only that, you will need to keep on top of being able to locate and distribute the latest updates of documents for yourself and for your team.

This will not only eat up your time, all the emails and updates need to be read by your team members and it will subsequently eat up their time too. If they are unsure about whether they have the latest updates they must contact you directly, probably by email again to make sure they are up to date with project changes and deadlines. They may lose emails or miss them in the ocean of updates. This will keep you even busier as you may feel the need to check receipt of messages.

Project managers are busy people sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in a rut, endlessly trying to keep the ball rolling, much too busy in fact to contemplate strategy or your team’s motivation. You probably work long hours, and worry about work after you get home.

Using social media can enhance the value project managers bring to their organisations.

Using a Web-based project management system

How about taking a deep breath, forget about the pressure and the race and take a moment to think about your project routine differently. Imagine a world where you only receive a small percentage of those emails that need reading in the morning. Imagine using a Web-based project management system. Using such a system allows everyone to check the project progress online, no matter where in the world they are, no matter what time it is, and no matter whether they are senior executives, or an individual with a small role to play. With such a system in place team members could update their progress online keeping the project plan up-to-date.

Click here for the Top 5 Project Management Apps that connect with Google Apps – using these you can connect your project to GMail, Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Create a Project Blog

WordPress is so simple and free, consider creating a project blog. Here you can publish your project development vision. Is a very simple method of getting feedback from team members, it allows collaborative discussions. Here you may be able to identify potential problems early on and deal with them before they get bigger. Team members could share their ideas and project-relevant thoughts.

Consider using Skype or Google+

The great things about Skype are instant messaging, call and video conferencing features all in one place. Of course if all of your team members had a Google+ account you could use hangouts instead. You can hold virtual meetings with team members and global customers.

Consider using Twitter, Google+ or other microblogging systems

Team members can use team members use it to report what they are working on real-time. You can allocate a project project hash tags to ask project specific questions. Team members can share links to files they are working on. Google+ would be ideal for this as you can create circles for key stakeholders, departments, senior management etc. You can share these circles with the appropriate people and then you can send messages and with just the relevant circles, or you can make announcements to all of your circles documents. Team members can ask for help and advice here, and everybody can check and create updates from their phones. It’s instant, it’s free and available to check whenever and wherever you may be.

Consider using a Project Wiki

Avoid document version confusion with a project wiki. Your wiki can become a universal reference resource. Its advantages are that it’s easily searchable, editable, and available.

Consider using Social Media channels to build relationships

As maintaining personal relationships is so important for any project manager. Think about using Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, and check in now and again to stay connected.

Social Media encourages and enables collaboration

The more your team collaborates and communicates the fewer mistakes they will make, the more they will share and understand project goals and objectives. There will be much more of a sense of community even when team members may not even be working on the same continent. Team members will begin to recognise each other even if they have never met in person. Those who are experts in particular fields will stand out so that other team members will know where to go to ask advice. As a project manager if you use these social and collaborative tools you will also establish yourself clearly as a project leader that your team members will respect.

Use Social Media to learn from your peers

Find other project management thought leaders on twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Google+.

Know when to turn off

Make sure that you have a purpose and a plan for everything you do using social media networks, otherwise you will begin to waste all the time you have saved!

Manage your social media activity by downloading this free Social Media Schedule. There is also a great list of social media management tools to help you keep track of your accounts.

Be careful what you publish and who can see it.

It’s important to understand what information is public and choose friends wisely.

Conclusion

Social networking sites are powerful communication tools for project managers. There are over 3,000 groups related to project management on LinkedIn. Social media allows businesses and organisations to efficiently, organise and deploy teams, collaborating across borders and between departments.

If you are new to Project Management you may be interested in our Project Management Training, Microsoft Project or PRINCE2 courses.