Social media tools are quietly crippling into our work space. Blogs are playing an important role in communicating among stakeholders. Project management teams have found its usefulness in communicating project status and progress, educating and providing end users support. Blogs when incorporated facilitate knowledge sharing and discussions.  Matthew Hodgson highlighted key points from CIO’s article on “How to use enterprise blogs to streamline project management” in other to get the best of social tools in project management:

1. Rules of engagement

Lay out what the rules of engagement will be. That will make the executives more comfortable with going forward.

2. Start small

Blogs work well when they catch on virally, so you need to introduce the idea to the right people, who will then sell the idea to the rest of the organization.

3. Curing the email addicts

The primary communication medium is still e-mail,” says Jonathan Edwards, a Yankee Group analyst. “We’re all so accustomed to it. You can’t change the way people work overnight.”. One way to wean employees from e-mail communications is to use the sister technology to a blog: Real Simple Syndication (RSS) with invitations sent through email.

4. “Tag It” or “Bag It”

Teaching employees to use blog-editing tools isn’t hard, since they essentially look like a lightweight word processor. Instead, the challenge comes in reminding them to tag their posts with keywords that will help with later search and discovery needs

5. “No” is not a good answer

If companies don’t adopt blogging technologies for the enterprise, line-of-business heads are just a credit-card purchase away from a hosted offering.

I’ve had this experience myself, where the project team has just gone to Wordpress because its free and the internal support just isn’t there.

6. Wikis can be a challenge for users to learn

Although it’s easy to set up wikis, it’s not always so easy for users to take advantage of them. “Wiki platforms have a bit of a learning curve. You have to dig in to learn how to use it”. The use of wikimarkup instead of a WYSIWYG editor will definitely put some people off using it.

7. Diversify

Blogs can use embedded material from a wide range of sources, including YouTube for project and stakeholder interviews, Flickr for pictures of workshops, and Slideshare material of PowerPoint presentations to the Executive. Even your team’s useful internet bookmarks shared through Delicious are likely to appeal to people reading the project’s posts. This will help your posts appeal to a wider range of people.

8. Don’t create a blogger. Free one!

The best Bloggers are those who are motivated to write, so utilize their enthusiasm rather than forcing someone whose heart just isn’t in it.

9. Low barrier to adoption

Wikipedia works well because anyone can create and edit just about anything. Even when there are errors they are typically fixed within a few hours.

Rather than putting in place hard security models for approvals, leverage the rules of engagement and encourage discussion and interaction by having few barriers (if any) for participation in the conversation.

10. Two-way, not one-way

Social media like blogs are about conversation, not the one way dialogue that project reporting typically adopts. Be ready to answer questions and engage with stakeholders openly, honestly, and with transparency.

11. Have fun!

Adults often forget that ‘play’ is one of the most effective ways to learn. Experimentation with different tools within a project will allow you and others to understand their use so that when it comes to employing them for external communications you’ll be well equipped to know the ins and outs of social media — what works, what doesn’t, and why.