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Written by Dr. Andrew Makar
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Successful projects recognize marketing and promoting a project's brand as a key contributor to successful change management and implementation. We often build logos, presentation templates and develop slogans to establish a project's identity and its reputation within the organization. However, as a skilled and talented project manager, how often do you promote your own personal project management brand?
By choice or by chance, we all market ourselves by informing the organization's key influencers and leaders on our latest achievements. Reflect on your latest performance review experience: Have you ever written buzzword laden prose such as "demonstrates customer focused leadership behaviors that consistently provide on-time delivery with high customer satisfaction"? You may have also been invited to a skip level meeting with the department director to highlight a key project's deliverables and your contributions the project. You may have been recognized as a knowledgeable project manager whose advice is often sought by novice PMs and your peers. These formal and informal examples demonstrate how you establish and promote your personal project management brand and reputation within the organization.
Knowing that there is still an ongoing war for talent, how do you promote your project management brand in the marketplace? This article provides a few creative approaches to establishing your project management brand and reputation using a variety of social media approaches. These approaches also help position yourself as a project management subject matter expert without appearing too self-serving.
Riding the Social Media Wave
I recently started riding the social media wave using a variety of social media tools including LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and blogs to promote my own project management brand to the project management community. All of these tools have been categorized as Web 2.0 technologies--the latest advances in Internet technology that include blogs, wikis, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), social bookmarking and collaboration.
Linkedin.com is one example of social media at work, and I'm assuming everyone has heard of it. It is a useful professional networking alternative to the more personal social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. If you haven't created a profile or haven't updated it in a while, you'll want to log back in and review some of the latest features.
Using LinkedIn to Promote Your PM Brand
LinkedIn has recently added several new social media applications that allow you to share presentations, collaborate and edit documents within your professional network, host threaded discussions, join networking groups--and even promote your favorite project management reading list. LinkedIn continues to add different applications that integrate and connect professionals across your network.
The key benefit of these applications is they enable you to promote and share your project management knowledge using a variety of tools. As a professional you may contribute project management best practices within your company, but you can also contribute to the project management community at large. By promoting your project management knowledge through tools that enable knowledge sharing, you position yourself as a skilled and knowledgeable resource that the community can use. It is also a proactive way to demonstrate your project management skills instead of "keyword stuffing" your resume with a growing list of industry buzz words.
The following LinkedIn applications are just a few ways to start promoting your project management brand and reputation:
Google Presentation and SlideShare Presentation
The Google Presentation application is a simple way to embed any relevant project management presentations in your online profile. The application integrates with Google Docs and with a few clicks your Google Doc hosted presentation is embedded on your LinkedIn profile. I've used this tool to promote a recent public presentation on mind mapping and it is an easy way to share information in a slideshow format.
SlideShare also features similar functionality and it supports a variety of file formats. When you log into your account, you can also view all the recent presentations your colleagues have published to their network. Building your own custom presentation and adding your own logo, slogan or even a headshot is a simple way to brand your material that others in the PM community will recognize.
Blog Link
Blog Link is an application that links your existing blog and embeds the most recent articles in your profile. Using one of the popular blog platforms like Blogger, TypePad or Word Press, you can easily integrate your blog with your LinkedIn profile. It will support any RSS feed so you're not limited to just these blog platforms.
The Blog Link application allows you to view your network contact's blog entries. By reviewing blog postings from those inside your professional network, you're able to learn, share and communicate more information on focused project management topics. Another useful technique is to start a discussion within one of the LinkedIn groups based on the blog postings.
Amazon Reading List
Have you read any good project management books lately? The Amazon reading list is a useful way to promote the latest books on your project management bookshelf. The application integrates with Amazon.com and allows you to recommend books and provide comments. It is just another way to start a discussion with your network on noteworthy topics in project management. The application also lists recommended books from your professional network and your related industry. If you're a project management author, it doesn't hurt to promote your own book as well!
Building a strong project management brand incorporates your identity and the information you promote and share with others. By promoting and sharing advice, ideas and relevant information, you successfully market yourself as a competent project manager who is not only active within your internal organization but also active within the community. Linkedin is just one website that leverages social media and Web 2.0. If you're new to social media, get started by updating your profile, starting a blog and exploring other social media technologies like Twitter, YouTube and RSS feed readers that contain useful project management content.
You can start your social media journey by connecting with me at http://www.linkedin.com/andymakar, follow and tweet @andymakar or view my project management channel at http://www.youtube.com/andymakar.
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