Lessons From a Social Media Intern

I have started my 2^nd internship in social media. It is important to understand that my lessons might be very different than others experiences. This is probably because while others went and searched out firms to do an internship with I wanted to work with actual infant accounts. Something that I could gain experience from the growth and what works and what does not. I specifically sought out internships where I would be the main person responsible not only for running the social media platforms but also designing future social media plans for the company.

My first internship was with my University. I worked with the Student Life department. I was responsible for the Facebook and Twitter ads. Yes, ads, the school had an approach of wanting to use the sites to push promotions. They actually labeled me the social media promotions intern. I did not know it at the time, but this was a lesson I would later realize was an example of what not to do. Granted promotions here and there are fine, but to be the main function of the social media the site is just plain ludicrous. Part of this was my own fault, as I did not consciously know at the time that we should develop quality content. I knew that there was something wrong with the way we had been doing it. But I wanted to do what my bosses had asked for. At the time I had not had social media marketing in school.

However I used my common sense and knew that we needed a way for people to view us as not just a sales enterprise and actually get them to engage on our site. I ended up creating a contest that reached over 10,000 people; this was a major success for a site that when I had taken it over had 30 followers.

My 2^nd internship I have just started. It is with the Edina Lakers a Junior Hockey team that is part of the Minnesota Junior Hockey League (MNJHL). Again with them, they are still new in diffusing the elements of social meida. While they have a decent following and have already established several platforms they have not developed the quality content that their fans are seeking out from their pages. This is my goal with them, develop a consistent user experience across all their platforms and engage with the people who have already been engaged to help penetrate more of the team’s fan market.

Keys to Success Learned So Far

1.    Patience – When working with clients, or employers of smaller businesses patience can be key. Most of the time these companies are lagging on their pages for a reason. They may not understand fully what social media can do for them. Other times they may have been intimidated as social media can seem very complex to someone who has not yet taken the dive. It may take a bit of time for them to get up to speed with everything you may be purposing.

2.    Content – It is one thing to have engagement your community. It is another to actually keep them engaged. People have tons of interest especially in today’s digital era. Capturing that attention takes effort and quality content that will give them a reason to tune in.

3.    Homework/Planning – One must do their homework in all formats. What is your client doing thus far? What are their close competitors doing? Can they differentiate? What is the target market? Have they reached their target? Tons of questions need to be answered. Any marketer knows these questions as they seemingly come second nature to us. But the 2^nd part is something that many forget. Planning is a major aspect of social media. One cannot just post things randomly when the ideas strike. Have a plan in mind, what are you trying to accomplish? Develop steps to take to accomplish that goal. Execute the steps in a timely matter that best reaches your market. Finally evaluate the effectiveness of the plan you had. Can you do better? My guess is yes, as everyone can do better.

There are tons of lessons from social media and this blog will be dedicated to my experience both in the classroom, internships, and on my own as I read just about everything I can manage.

On the next post I plan to debunk the 7 myths of social media!