Social Media PMI Workshop

I had great time doing a workshop on Social Media for the Board of Directors of the PMI-CTT Chapter in Waterloo the other week. The Chapter is looking at ways in providing its members with more timely information improve awareness of the chapter and ultimately increase its membership.

PMI is the world’s leading not-for-profit membership association for the project management professional. There are more than 600,000 members worldwide. The CTT Chapter is Canada’s Technology Chapter which is located in the Waterloo Region. The Board of Directors developed a series of questions with sub-points that they wanted to discuss in an open forum. To help with that, the workshop was structured in such a way so that they all could get a better understanding of what Social Media can bring to the Chapter.

The workshop focused on the major Social Networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+. The workshop was broken into 3 different sections.

• An overview of the Social Networks
• A walk through of each of the Social Networks
• Open Discussions, Questions and Strategizing

The overview briefly described the features of each network, how they can be used, and the demographics – such as usage and usage by age group.

The walk through was a a live detailed analysis of each network and its features. The board got to see the differences between Facebook Groups vs Facebook Pages and the pros and cons of each. We examined the basics of Twitter – tweeting, direct messages, @mentions. What hashtags are and how they could be used by Chapter members for events and tweetchats. We reviewed how to optimize LinkedIn profiles, and evaluated the features of groups. We looked at Google+, discussed Circles and Hangout functionality. We looked at tools such as HootSuite and Buffer and how they can help with posting content. Finally, we reviewed Google Alerts and Google Reader, even though they are not social networks they relevant tools to help with the development of content.

The last session was for strategizing.   How can each of these networks help with the goals of the chapter?   How can they be used – which networks, and which features make the most sense to use.  How much setup and time would it take to manage each network or networks?   And more importantly, what is the knowledge of each network by chapter members and does the chapter need to do additional training.

All in all it was a fantastic day.  Social Media can drive and help achieve the goals of the chapter. It can also increase the visibility of the chapter.  The next step for the Chapter is to survey it’s members to get a better understanding of how they are currently using Social Media.

I am looking forward to the results and in helping the chapter achieve its goals.