Much has been said about the usefulness of Social Media within Project Management, but a topic that as yet seems to have been left untouched is how Project Management can help in Social Media Marketing campaigns.

Many of the principles and techniques that we teach in our Project Management Training, as well as on our PRINCE2 Course, can be applied to Social Marketing campaigns in order to improve their effectiveness and efficiency.

In this post we'll be taking a look at some and how they should be enacted.

Initiating a Project

The 'Initiating a Project' stage of PRINCE2 can certainly be applied to a Social Media campaign. This process effectively outlines the reasons for and initial format of a project.

With regard to a Social Media campaign, it would require an understanding of the goals you hope to achieve by engaging on this platform.

It would also set out the preliminary ideas as to how to go about enacting this, both from a strategic point of view (what sort of things will you post, who are you targeting) and from a logistical perspective (which networks will you use and how much.)

Within the Directing a Project (DP) stage of PRINCE2®, authorising a project is a particularly important process.

Without it, the next stage plan cannot be approved which means that the project cannot proceed.

In this post we'll take a look in more detail at why it is a necessary process, who is responsible for each aspect and how it should be carried out.

If you'd like to find out more about PRINCE2 processes like authorising a project, try our PRINCE2 Courses.

Why is it Needed?

By using this process it means that the project board can make sure that there is:

• An acceptable Business Case in place (read 'What is a Business Case?' for more details)
• The goals and methods of the project match that of the corporate strategy
• An acceptable set of tolerances (and scope) has been set
• Risks are accepted and outlined fully
• The right controls have been set

Scope creep is a project manager's nightmare, which makes it an important part of our Introduction to Project Management course. In this post, our PRINCE2 and project management trainer Claudine gives a brief oversight of scope creep and how to manage it.

Firstly let’s clarify what scope is. It is the boundaries of what will be included or excluded from your project. For example:

• Features or functionality of a product
• Information or data included or excluded
• Organisations or stakeholders
• Procedures or processes

Managing scope creep is easier when using an established project management methodology like PRINCE2, which goes some way to explain why PRINCE2 Practitioner training is one of our most popular courses!

Why is it important to define scope?

One of the biggest gripes project managers have is of the “moving goal posts” or scope creep. This involves a large number of additions or changes to the requirements of a project, resulting in timescales and budgets to be exceeded. In addition, it also becomes difficult to plan and resource a project that is in a constant state of flux and transformation.

So it is important that scope is managed correctly so that the project manager is able to deliver a product within their objectives of time, cost, quality, scope, risk and benefit.