The popularity of social media changes constantly. Hearing the phrase ‘social media’ usually brings Facebook to mind, as it appears to be the top social network on the web. According to Facebook itself, the site has about 2 billion monthly active users. Another extremely popular social network is Twitter, with 328 million monthly active users.
Does this mean that project schedulers are most likely to be found on Facebook or Twitter?
Despite the popularity of massive social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the majority of the project schedulers seem to prefer LinkedIn. This article goes into detail to explain and exemplify the reasons for this.
Facebook key purpose is personal engagement and people use it to connect with friends and share thoughts, news and various content. The most common age demographic, which comprises 29.7% of users, is age 25 to 34. Twitter statistics show that 37% of Twitter users are 18-29 years old, while 25% users are aged between 30 and 49. This platform is preferred for its short message limit and posts there quickly go viral.
When it comes to LinkedIn, a well-known fact is that it primarily exists to help individuals arrange professionally. The website has over 400 million registered users and is available in 24 languages. Since it is a business-oriented informal communication site, it allows for people to connect with people in similar industries, facilitates the networking with local professionals and serves as a great platform for displaying business related information and statistics. With all these options, LinkedIn is not only a social network but also a contact management system – something project schedulers are well familiar with.
Project Schedulers are more than familiar with the concept of time-management and the value of it. LinkedIn’s variety of features provides all the necessary and valuable information one professional may require at one place and at once. Some of most used features include the blogging platform, professional networking, groups and asking and answering questions.
LinkedIn’s blogging platform is the place where many professionals express their thoughts and ideas, give advice, share news and insights and most importantly, receive relevant feedback. Even if you do not feel like writing, there is the possibility of sharing another person’s post and disseminating information that you find interesting and valuable. With this, members enable their connections/groups to see potentially helpful content that they otherwise might have missed and enhance their reputation on the network.
The majority of the posts are career-related articles which spread very quickly when they offer valuable information. Apart from sharing experience, professionals use the blogs for promotion. Members post articles from their own blogs and expand their reader-audience. Among the most noteworthy schedulers who successfully integrate their own blog with LinkedIn is Vivien Goldstrong, who posts on her own blog (projectschedulepro.com), but also uses LinkedIn as a place to share her experience and give advice to other professionals. Besides Vivien, some other schedulers which seem to be active members of LinkedIn while simultaneously managing their own blogs are Khuong Do (doduykhuong.com) and Paul Epperson (conschmanservices.com).
Another very useful feature of LinkedIn is its highly developed networking. LinkedIn’s search options facilitate the way of finding the right connections for you as you can search according to profession and skills and the site itself offers statistic insight of jobs, companies, people, and articles for the searched profession/skills. In this way, members instantly connect with people and professional organizations in their industry. Such connections provide you with immediate access to the latest industry trends and news. Sometimes, one right connection is worth more than 10 blogs or forums.
In addition to networking with people in your LinkedIn network, LinkedIn offers the possibility to set up and join specific groups in order to discuss ideas and share industry news. This has proved to be tremendously useful because when professionals from different domains join groups it enables a flow of ideas through brainstorming which otherwise might not have happened.
Furthermore, the groups are used as a database for immensely valuable information. By joining groups members also build their professional network further. In other words, being a member of the right groups will help you keep up with everything that is happening in your field and connect you with ‘movers and shakers’ in your industry.
Speaking of the right groups, these turned out to be highly relevant for and frequented by project schedulers: “Planners & Schedulers & Project Control Professional” and “Planning, Project, Programme& Portfolio Management”.
Apart from the articles, LinkedIn is also used for asking and answering questions. A number of people use the groups on LinkedIn as a place to ask a question and get a helpful answer within minutes. Another way that members post questions is through their profile’s status update, which can be seen by the members of their network.
In contrast with asking for information is providing information. Many professionals offer expertise to the members of their network or the groups they are part of and inevitably establish trust and boost their reputation as an expert in the field.
