Now that I have an idea for Breaking Down PR, all I want to do is jump straight to the content creation part, and begin posting everywhere. However, I know if I were to just dive into creating a profile, and posts; I would be extremely disappointed in myself. Creating content of any kind should always have a calculated approach, no matter how excited you may be! Last thing you’ll want to deal with are the consequences for producing baseless work. I have realized a lot this week while finding a project management system that works for me.
Think about some of the profiles you follow on social media. It could be a brand of some sorts, or a page dedicated to inspirational quotes; anything really! You would be surprised how many of those profiles actually put in a ton of time and energy into creating their profiles before actually launching their social media campaign with some maybe having to wait to see benefits of their own content for awhile. According to a Social Media Today article by Sarah Snow; Tom Martin of Converse Digital said, “most social media marketing strategies tend to take about 6 months to see any payoffs”. 6 months can be a long time pending what your social media campaign is all about. The results of how successful a social media campaign is will rely heavily on every detail that can be executed properly in the beginning stages.
Moira Alexander in her article for Tech Republic said, “project planning plays an essential role in helping guide stakeholders, sponsors, teams, and the project manager through other project phases. Planning is needed to identify desired goals, reduce risk, avoid missed deadlines, and ultimately deliver the agreed product, service or result”. This is exactly why a project management plan should never be taken lightly. The project plan is what will guide you from beginning to end and allow you to clearly monitor your progress.
Though I am only a few short weeks into this journey of creating a social media campaign, I shamelessly must admit; I never took much thought into project management planning. I have not had the pleasure of creating content without having to follow certain perimeters. All of my past experience has been working for companies who have a brand voice, an image, tone, and look. I have always had to match the content I was creating to their needs or come up with social media campaigns that would support a product or service. What is happening now is somewhat foreign to me. To have the freedom to create a social media campaign completely from scratch is both nerve-wracking and exciting all at the same time!
As someone who loves structure and rules to follow; I knew I had to try and find a good system to help plan each phase of this campaign. There are many different types of web-based project management systems; such as but not limited to, Trello, Asana, and Airtable. It is important to note that not every system is going to work for the same project or person. Seeing how I am working on an independent project, I am going to want to take in account how user friendly, convenient and straightforward a system is. I also would like to use a system that is free. After careful consideration, I decided to use Asana for the Breaking Down PR social media campaign.
What I enjoy about Asana is the many features it offers. Asana allows me to break down each phase of the project into carefully detailed stages accompanied with tasks, and subtasks as well. I am also able to mark the importance of the task at hand, along with what stage I am at. This will be a tremendous help in staying on track with every aspect of this project. I’m also able to view each subject in list, board, timeline and calendar form. For the social media campaign, I created five phases: Research, Final Analysis, Pre-Launch, Launch, and Post-Launch. Each phase is broken up into smaller categories. These categories will include detailed subtasks and timeframes for each subtask to be completed. Each task is broken down to an actionable detail that benefits the overall achievement of the category itself. By structuring it this way, it will help me be able to move onto the next phase of the project.
Asana makes planning extremely efficient. If I had to do this without some sort of system, I know I wouldn’t be able to think of every detail or get to every step necessary for a successful social media campaign. It may seem aggressive at first to have to write out each and every single task or subtask, but it is well worth it. With so many other thing’s going on in life, why not add structure where ever you can? I want to be able to enjoy this journey and I know if I tried to wing something this important, I would be stressed out and disappointed with myself every step of the way.
I also enjoy that Asana keeps a dashboard along with a progress section as well. If you fall behind on tasks, notifications will be sent to alert you that you are falling behind. It really is like having an assistant at times! Asana also makes it fun with a series of awesome features that brighten up your experience while using the entire system from start to finish. As I get more familiar with the system, I find that I am constantly asking myself why I haven’t utilized a project management system before? It makes the whole life cycle of a project easier to monitor and could be used for any project as well. I am excited to use Asana throughout the next few weeks and looking forward to blogging more of what I experience as I go on. If you would like to know more about my project, just click here.
Thanks for reading!
-Austin
The Media Relations Nomad 