The internship being remote has been a roller coaster, I manage the social media post for the page. I feel like it’s easier to have miscommunication through email than with in-person interaction. In addition, I also feel like the expectations changes when you’re not meeting with the boss especially when it comes to the assignments. I have been able to network with people she has hired to expand her projects like photographers and influencers. I attend a popup shop where my boss was presenting her products to the community it was interesting to see the process first hand. It was a great experience seeing women support each other, especially in the black community I thought it was a special moment. Seeing many vendors coming together to have a space that was created to cater to supporting small business owners. I’m adjusting to sticking with a concrete routine to manage the account page and approved content for the page.
Projects: Behind the Scene of Product Making
My internship has me creating more Instagram carousels posts recently and everything has kind of calmed down. The previous weeks my boss was a part of a pop-up shop that catered to small business owners allowing them to set up booths and socialize. The business opportunity allowed a lot of room for networking with vendors owners, reconnecting with existing customers and new ones. The product focus is now shifting to mainly about the hair care line and product shots. We’re going to begin focusing on the men’s line which includes beard oils, beard balm with additional accessories.
I attended another digital seminar this week I feel like I’ve been gaining a ton of knowledge. I attend Adobe Summit the conference was called Why Brands Are Using Customer Journey Analytics the host was Whitney Lee. She gave an interesting. I learned a new terminology during the virtual seminar the abbreviation CJA which stands for Customer Journey Analytics. They made the connection between how a lot of brands depend on Cookie data and there is a possible shift in having a cookie-less future to gain these analytics the brands depend on. Instead, you must create experiences worth authenticating for. Understanding down to the customer level is key in building an experience they would always come back for. CJA purpose is to build cross-channel understanding and in some cases, we don’t need web data at all! we should be thinking beyond the browser.
Learning from Digital Seminar
This week in particular I attended a Digital webinar seminar for the internship class I found online. The webinar focused on social media marketing and how important using social media for organic, sustainable growth can be. The speaker explained how advertising is seeing a great shift on Facebook recently when navigating advertisements. There has been a huge decline in success and traction on this social media platform. Another key factor that was explained is how important being consistent and using the tools social media platforms already provide to your advantage. The speaker explained the value of letting these big companies that operate the social media platform tell you what they’re reaching towards. These social media platforms will further push advertisements they want to see people engage with overall. You should pay attention because they filter what the public wants to see and what features or benefits you want to highlight on the platform. The example discussed was the Reels feature on Instagram at this present moment, Instagram wants to push video creation to beat its competitor like TikTok. It was a very insightful digital conference I learned a lot about the marketing side of social media and a ton of business owners attend the event as well. I discovered the need of creating knowledgeable content and further understand algorithms. The digital webinar had about more the 25 people or more joining the digital webinar people asked a ton of interesting questions. The audience had different interests and someone who was already heavily involved in digital marketing had asked questions pertaining to hastags still being relevant and google search engine optimization for filtering. Other people in the group were small business owners who wanted to gain knowledge on how they can better handle their social media accounts.
These are just some of the things I highlighted and took notes on during the webinar. I found this to be very insightful and offered a new perspective for me going forward on how the business owner looks at marketing and makes decisions. This also validated one of my personal opinions on how Facebook is dying out. Facebook has become the environment where most people only log on to look at relatives and friends and the Meta project is their initiative to bring back some traction.
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- Recent post from the week
Attended the photoshoot for product shots
The ball started moving really fast when it came to the internship because it’s remote, she assigned me the first content for the Instagram page and we reviewed the essential things like developing the brand’s visual identity. The colors, typefaces, context for body copy, and headlines. I ran into so many hiccups this week in particular I created content for the brand’s Instagram page along with stories. I thought I was following the guidelines she wrote in an email but I misunderstood what was asked of me. I had to recreate the post I have been waiting on her approval for. I would call this experience like anything new it takes trial and error to get something done especially when it’s your first time. I can’t blame myself too much I can always improve and ask more questions ahead of time to make sure I created something that my supervisor would really like. I was upset that I didn’t get it right the first time but luckily, I had enough time to revise everything I created and was able to make some corrections to nail the deadlines for the week she has assigned me.
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- Behind the scenes of product shots
I also help my boss Tasha set up some product shots and research visuals for an upcoming in-feed post for the brand. I analyzed the analytics for the post I created so I could better test how the SEO is performing because I have been working on the certification outside of the internship this is a perfect way to access what I learned so far.
Obtaining an internship
After my first-round picks fell through I got back in touch with the lady I was referred to be a friend. She agreed to work with me remotely which worked best in my interest because I need to work at my current job full time to pay my rent and cover other living expenses like my tuition this current semester. We continued emailing back and forth It’s been a week since I started working for Tasha’s small brand the brand consists of a haircare line. This first week has been great and very productive. I’m currently making a mood board for her at the beginning of the week then towards the end I submitted the document I created and reviewed it with her and got feedback on the direction she wanted to go. She set importance on keeping her logo involved in the color scheme for the social media post. I’m also designing their new branding to help keep the vision she intended cohesive. I created a library for future projects and to keep everything organized.
Tasha is my supervisor she is the woman in charge she runs this small business and really wanted to see if skill sets can align with what she was looking for. So far She has allowed me to work remotely on the project and submit then review all content. So far, she is giving me guidelines to follow for her brand. I’m currently in the process of making a google Excel sheet to keep track of all the post that is being intend for creation like in feed post and stories. I already had a passion for the beauty community so it great opportunity to focus on woman owned business. I have already used several of her I found the product to be useful and work great with my hair so far but Im still testing the waters.Right now my main focus is just brain storming idea I can picth that tell the story of her brand whil also trying to develop the skills im learning from my certification course in seo and analytic to find where her audience is for this particular niche.
Still searching an interviewing for internship
I had been patiently waiting for the response for a company I was interested in and applied through LinkedIn and Parker Dewey micro internships. Someone had recommended me for the friend of a friend who was starting a small hair care line and desperately want to increase her engagement on social media. A friend spoke highly of me and told her I create good social media content, especially for natural hair content. I reached out to this woman and eventually met her in person we began emailing back and forth continuously I pitched some of my idea for content she could create based on her brand. She was very interested in my thought process and pitches. She asked me about my knowledge of social media I explained I’m self-taught and have a college degree in Communication Design. I’m currently advancing my skill set by getting certifications for the analytic aspect of credentials.
I kept my options open I applied for several Micro Internships which included different job descriptions. One of the internships possibly wanted help with the social media accounts, they were a streetwear brand that gave their customers shoppable content from music artist videos. In other words, they created a connection between visual music videos and access to knowledge of where to shop items from music videos. The other internship I applied for was a beauty brand that specifically focused on protecting woman’s hair in the shower. I was very interested in this brand because I’m heavily consumed by hair products and protections for hair follicles. Lastly, I applied to several small agencies some nonprofit and the rest were not. This definitely was a learning experience especially on my venture to pivot into my career job or what I like to refer to as my girl job
Searching stage for an Internship
Over the course of the pandemic, I realized I wanted to get into digital marketing. I have spent quite some time in retail because that’s what pays my rent and allows me to survive. I finally Decided over the fall that I want to re-attend New York City College of Technology. Applied to many internships while taking my fall 2021 semester kept getting denied this really sucked for me. I changed my internship-seeking option and start asking word of mouth; I knew I loved creating content and pinching ideas. This spring I found someone who was willing to give me creative freedom to help bring her ideas and my creative interest in social media to life.
I used Indeed, LinkedIn and then towards the start of the semester in beginning of the semester I started using Parker Dewey as my to-go platform for job searching. I compiled a list at the beginning of each week of 10-15 places I was interested in working at and I applied to them throughout the week. I have had a few places interview me or ask for a skill Assessment.
