Internship Status: Completed

This post was written by our Social Media Intern, Mary.

After eight weeks, many hours at a computer, and almost an entire summer that flew by, I have completed by time here as the social media intern at 360 PSG. I learned a vast amount of information about the tech world, the world wide web, and generally working in a corporate office setting. Although I am about to enter my last year as a marketing major, the term "marketing" is just about as broad as you can get. Everything from promotions, to advertising, and sales to branding is under that large umbrella, and involves functions including research, communications, design, and a number of other jobs that all lead to one goal: get a customer to know who you are, buy your product, and keep buying your product. The work I have done at 360 PSG emphasized how important and effective social media can be in reaching this goal.

I learned in the ins and outs of social media, the importance it plays in everyday life, and how powerful of a marketing tool it really is. There are also shortcuts, techniques, and services that enable a company to reach a wide span of customers and markets very easily. Instead of tweeting, posting, and sharing on each individual social media platform, you can just quickly do it all at once from websites like Hootsuite. And don't forget, quantity is important, but quality surpasses all. Tweeting a million times a day does nothing if it's not interesting or relevant. Blogging can also be a really useful tool if used correctly. Keep it engaging, informational, and easy to read to catch and keep your reader's attention.

My two biggest projects were working on the Social Madness competition hosted by Business First and developing a Buffalo-themed Facebook trivia contest to create more social engagement with our current and potential customers. All in all, each was a success. We made it to the final round of Social Madness, placing second in the Buffalo area, and although the Facebook contest will continue through September, each week we are increasing our level of communication through social engagement.

I was fortunate to not only learn about social media, but about the building and development of websites, just what SEO is and how it works, and even a little bit about web design while experimenting with Photoshop. Spending two months with a web company gave me the opportunity to not only broaden my marketing spectrum of knowledge, but also about the realm of the web and everything that goes into building a website. I look forward to taking what I learned this summer back to school and hopefully in future Internships and job opportunities.