Do you remember the days when Twitter had just come out and people were trying to figure out how to use it for business?

I do. In fact, I became fascinated with social media for business. I was still a student but I could already see the massive shifts happening in the communications world.

Even though I studied International Business, my passion for comms made me follow big names such as Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott who were pioneers in how to do PR the modern way.

And so I decided to pursue a career in PR. I read every book on PR that I could get my hands on, I interned in PR and I worked part-time in a PR agency during my final year at university.

I tried to learn everything I could.

I did everything - I wrote press releases, I pitched national and regional media through email and cold calls, I worked with bloggers, I managed social media channels.

It was great. I learned a lot.

But I could see that even though I worked so hard and my agency team did too, we were basically just slaves in the eyes of the client. They didn’t consider us strategic advisers. We were just implementers and every time we tried to convince the client to do something new, it was close to impossible.

We recently covered the different project management approaches, however, I thought it might be helpful to ensure that we have the fundamentals of project management discussed as well. 

As I was thinking about how to best do this, I didn't want to write a heavy 3,000-word piece so I decided to yet again use infographics as they're so easy to consume.

Today, we'll cover: 

• what is project management
• the 5 key project management process groups (or phases)
• and 8 important project management processes 

As you can see, I've become very passionate about project management. Next week, I'm taking the exam with the PMI to become a certified project management professional so you can expect a lot more on the topic over the coming weeks and months. 

Now let's get started. 

What is Project Management [Infographic]

When I was in my first year at university, I fell in love with marketing and communications and specifically, PR.

This was unusual as I was doing a BA in International Business and most students with such a degree tend to choose finance or consulting as a career.

But authors like Brian Solis and David Meerman Scott helped me make my choice.

I decided to follow their footsteps and set myself a goal: One day, I will publish a book about PR with Wiley.

Little did I know that eight years later, I'd achieve my goal.

How did I do it? By starting a blog in that first year of university.

As I didn't study PR, a blog was the best way to develop writing skills that are so crucial for PR. Also, social media and SEO are another set of skills you need so that you can spread the word about your blog and have a readership.

But what was crucial was that I didn't give up. It was hard, it was time-consuming to do on top of all of your responsibilities but 7+ years later, I still keep publishing content once a week.

It's discipline and persistence that are required for remarkable content.

Everyone is a project manager. Even if your job title or job description doesn't contain 'project management', you still manage projects in your professional and personal lives all the time.

Think about it: planning your next trip or your wedding is very much a project so is the launch of a new product or a service or simply the process of planning and executing the next meeting you have to run. 

So what is a project? 

A project is a certain outcome or a task that is timebound and has an end game to it - something you're aiming to achieve. 

I've been running projects my entire life - moving to Germany, UK and then Ireland were all projects so were my dissertations about PR and social media for sustainability as well as all beauty blogger campaigns I run when I was working in my previous PR agency and now so are the multiple things that I do in my current Program Management job that by definition is all about managing multiple global projects at the same time. 

It took me a while to figure out how to excel as a program manager without formal project management education. If you've never run a project at work, it's helpful to start with an understanding of what project management is in the first place and what are the key methodologies that will help you make a decision on how to run your project.

Republished with permission from ITPR's blog. 

Inbound PR has changed the way we deliver campaigns for the better. Whether it’s being able to track and present our results or the way we interact with journalists, we’ve seen a significant uptick in PR results and, more importantly, client happiness!

As we’ve spoken about before, the concept has had a profound effect in generating new business, but there are still a few challenges with Inbound PR that we’ve seen cropping up again and again when trying to implement Inbound PR campaigns. 

What is Inbound PR? 

Inbound PR is an evolution of traditional PR in an effort to keep up with constant changes in the digital age. While traditional PR has purely relied on coverage to prove its worth, Inbound PR goes beyond that to delve deeper into the metrics and outcomes that help meet business goals.

Don’t get me wrong – any PR campaign should aim to get you a bucketful of coverage, but if you’re not tracking who’s clicked through to your website as a result of that coverage, how will you be able to prove the effect of it?