When goals are met…Dec. 1
This is the last blog post I’ll be doing for my internship! As if I haven’t said it before, it is crazy how fast this semester has gone.
I’ve already scheduled everything for this week (check out the screenshot I got of an example of what I schedule in a week) so the last thing I have to do is write my final paper. I got an interview from someone and this week I’ll be focusing on looking up statistics and writing the paper.
I was so happy when I logged onto Hootsuite earlier because I noticed I FINALLY met my goal: I got to 501 followers before my internship ended! Yay!
When I started the internship, the number stood at 470 so that’s a nice improvement and it feels great being able to meet my goal.
Woohoo!
The office will be treating another student that worked in the office this semester and me to lunch on Thursday so I can’t wait for that.
Break gave me the opportunity to catch up on some work but this week, my main focus will be on writing my final paper. I filled out my student evaluation, which ended up being longer than I thought it would but it’s completed.
It is almost over and I can’t believe it. I’ve been able to explore a whole other side of social media that I never thought I would—the side within higher education. I was able to use skills I learned in other internships to curate and schedule content, look up information about best times to schedule, schedule job postings and create a newsletter. I was able to learn new skills and I’m excited to see where that will take me in the future.
Winding down, Nov. 25
I just realized I forgot to post a blog for this past week! Everything is pretty much winding down at this point so there’s really not much else to discuss.
I’m still posting whatever jobs need to be put onto social media and I have one more week left to schedule content. I’m filling out my student evaluation form now, as well as preparing for my final paper, which is due next week. I’m setting up some questions and hopefully will get an outline together soon!
I can’t believe the semester is coming to a close. Every semester goes so quickly and this one was no different. I got to learn and enhance upon skills in this internship, while working on a different side of social media.
It’s finished! Nov. 15
The newsletter is finished! Yay!!! I think it turned out great and I got to learn a new program, Constant Contact. There are images of it below. (I had to screenshot the newsletter in bits since it was a little long, but you get the gist 🙂 )
So, for the last few weeks of my internship, I’ll be curating content and scheduling it on Facebook and Twitter, posting jobs and anything sent to me, and it would still be nice to try to come up with some type of Instagram plan for the office.
I still have to complete my Student Evaluation form as well—hopefully that will be sent soon because it’s due Nov. 25. I didn’t have a check-in meeting this week so that means there’s only two more meetings left in the semester.
Before next week’s meeting, I have to collect the hits and views each Facebook post and tweet has gotten this semester and also put it into a concise summary since there have been so many posts.
The last thing I have to complete for the semester is for my Communication credit and that’s a final paper. I have to start getting some interviews together and thinking of the big picture of how the paper is going to be put together. That’s due the very last day of classes, which also happens to be the day I’ll be lobbying in D.C. so I really need to start getting everything planned out!
I’ve probably said this at least five times already in my blog but I really cannot believe how fast the semester has gone by. It’s been a pretty stressful semester—junior year sure is living up to its reputation of being the most stressful. But I’ve learned a lot and I’ve also enhanced skills I’ve already worked on. I’ve had experience in social media but this was different since it was for an actual office and it also included content I never worked with before—job postings. It’s been a good experience.
Newsletter is just about finished, Nov. 8
So, as the title says, the newsletter is almost finished! Yay! There are only a few more details that need to be added and it is supposed to be getting sent out on Tuesday. That means I can post it in my blog next week. It’s so exciting that it’s finally all coming together and going to be sent out soon after working on it for the past few weeks.
Also, at my weekly meeting this past week, I said that I wasn’t going to be able to continue next semester. I’m going to have more classes next semester than I did this semester and it just wouldn’t have fit in my schedule. That means there’s four weeks left…that’s crazy! Thanksgiving break and finals will be here before I know it.
I don’t really have much else to say for this week but I’m looking forward to sharing the newsletter next week!
Mid-semester check in, Nov. 1
This past week, I had my midpoint semester check in with my supervisor. We discussed my learning objectives and how I’m been coming along on them. Of course, two of my learning objectives have not exactly been implemented this semester since, when I made them; I wasn’t exactly sure what the position entailed. That was taken care of though when I mentioned it here a couple of weeks ago.
The check in went well. Next semester was mentioned again but I’m going to have a lot more classes next semester than I did this semester—I’ll have to see how things go.
There’s only one last piece of the newsletter that needs to be completed so that’s exciting! It was interesting working with Constant Contact since I had never used that program before. I figured whenever I had a project to work on, like a newsletter, it would be laid out in InDesign but it was nice being able to use and learn about a new program as well.
One thing I’m really keeping an eye on is how many followers are on Twitter. I’m trying to get to 500 before the end of the semester so it would be awesome to hit that goal. I’ve really been trying to use engaging hashtags and questions on both Facebook and Twitter but there is a larger increase in followers than likes on Facebook.
The rest of the semester will be filled with posting internships and jobs, making and scheduling content, and creating a spreadsheet to track how much engagement each link/post on Facebook has received this semester. I will also be attempting to put together an Instagram plan for the office before the semester ends.
I also have to collect my interviews and put together my final paper. One month to go—crazy how fast the semester has gone!
Goals, Oct. 24
I have been getting a lot of things done. The last few pieces of information that I need for the Trending newsletter are in my email and ready to be put onto the template. Hopefully the newsletter will be sent out in a couple of weeks.
Since the semester will be ending before we know it, lots of internships for the spring are coming in as well. That means lots of scheduling and organizing. I scheduled a lot of posts/tweets yesterday and I still have about six leftover that still need to be scheduled.
I also heard back about the employer evaluation, which as it turns out, will be getting done around mid-November. I also discussed my final paper with my adviser and it’s going to focus on social media and its future. I have to collect some interviews to put together the paper so I’ll need to start thinking of some good sources. I may ask my supervisor from a previous internship I had so I’ll have to see how that works out!
We also set some goals for the remainder of the semester at our weekly meeting this week. Some things we discussed were putting images with some job postings, scheduling job/internship/resume postings/tweets around registration, and retweeting other office’s tweets a few times a week. I’ve already started implementing everything too.
Registration will be here before I know it. I need to see if my schedule next semester allows me to stay for another semester.
Semester midpoint, Oct. 19
I worked on a few different projects this week. I started a new social media campaign. It was to promote the visit of Kevin Ryan to campus. I also worked on the newsletter for next month. There are still things that need to be finished since all I did was a rough draft but it should be getting sent out early November.
Another social media campaign that I’ll be working on is promoting the Exploration of Majors event. There’s a little card promoting the event that I’ll be sharing out through the various social networks and I also distributed them to the tables in Jazzman’s after my weekly meeting.
I just noticed as well my proposal is due for my final paper. I have to also do my mid-semester check in and really start thinking about what I was to write about for my final paper. That due date is going to be here before I know it…
Since it’s the midpoint of the semester, one of the biggest things I’ve learned so far is how to manage my time and keep organized, especially with job postings always coming in and changes being made to the spreadsheet. I’m also working on projects I never would have expected, such as the spreadsheet. It’s good to work on things outside of social media, however, because it gives a greater range of experiences.
Let’s do this! Oct. 11
I will finally be getting the newsletter started this weekend!
I was able to go through face-to-face with Shakeyia the technicalities of the newsletter and I think that will help a lot. Some of the information I’ll be looking up myself but for the most part, I’ll be using a template on Constant Contact to enter in all the information.
I feel as though I’ve finally really found a rhythm that works for me in this internship. I’m staying on top of the job postings, doing all my curating and scheduling on Sundays, and will now be working on the newsletter until the end of the month to be distributed in November.
AND the midpoint of the semester is this week. I really cannot believe how fast this semester is going. Though it sometimes feels like it isn’t going by quickly at all, it has passed by so fast. Soon classes will have to be picked for next semester and everything for this semester will be over before I know it. That means I’ll also be having my mid-semester check in for the internship soon as well.
Can someone tell the semester to slow down a little bit?
Anyway, with the rest of the semester, I hope to focus on continuing to curate content for Facebook and Twitter, finishing up the newsletter (which when I do, I will post here) and developing an Instagram plan!
Gifs sure add to the fun of the blog, don’t they?
Learning Objectives, Oct. 3
I didn’t have a very eventful week so this post will be fairly short!
This week, I decided to focus on my learning objectives. When writing them over the summer, I put them together based off of the responsibilities and job description. Some of the things I originally wrote, however, I will not be doing this semester. If I continue next semester, I’ll be focusing more on the promotional material and blogging side of things.
So far, my focus has mainly been on social media—creating content in a spreadsheet, posting and tweeting out various questions, posting job postings, live tweeting an event, and hopefully getting a plan together for an Instagram account. I’ve been able to use Hootsuite to schedule tweets and, as was in my learning objectives, tracking views, likes, clicks, etc. I’ve been able to track various links using bit.ly that I will transfer into a spreadsheet and also put into a graph before the end of the semester.
So I’m still getting lots of things completed—some that may have been in my learning objectives but will be worked on later; even some that I didn’t include in the learning objectives that I am doing. I’m still learning a lot. It’s taught me that even though you have to come up with learning objectives that doesn’t mean in the least that you have to limit yourself to those specific objectives. They’re more of a guide. Most of the time I’m sure people go far beyond their objectives—how can one not? You’re continually learning throughout an internship and those lessons can’t all be predicted when putting together your objectives sheet.
Okay, so this post wasn’t as short as I thought it would be. Anyway, in the coming weeks, I’ll be working on developing next month’s newsletter. That will be a good topic for me to blog about on here. More to come next week!
Let’s get down to business, Sept. 26
I can’t believe how fast the semester is going. I’ve been running around so much and now September is almost over! That also means the midpoint of the semester will be quickly approaching—how crazy is that?
At my meeting, I got a learning manual so I can’t wait to start looking through that. This week, I scheduled more content on various social media platforms. I’ll be putting new content into my spreadsheet soon to cover the next few weeks. One of the things I’m finding challenging, and something I’m trying to learn how to better manage, are my spreadsheets. When I get job and internship postings, they go right into a spreadsheet and then I schedule them for various times. While I check the spreadsheet often, at times I may not notice a new posting right away. I’ve come to realize I’ll need to check it at various times throughout the day so I don’t miss anything.
So looking forward, I’ll be scheduling lots of things I have “in storage” for the new month (and it’s quite a lot), curate more content to cover the next few weeks, and work towards improving how often I check my spreadsheets for any new content that may be added. I’ll be working on a newsletter soon as well.
Also, here’s one thing that I worked on towards the beginning of the semester:
#SocialMediaFun, Sept. 20
I had the great experience yesterday of being able to live tweet a Career Fair. It was overwhelming at first trying to figure out what to tweet and the importance of representing through photographs. I was eventually able to get the hang of it, however, by walking around, just trying to get a handle on everything that was going on at once…at it was a lot.
I had done some live tweeting before but not like I was at this event. I was pretty much tweeting every few minutes, if not less time than that. As I said, it was pretty overwhelming at first. I barely knew any of the employers that were represented or what to tweet about them.
Students clearly wanted to speak with the various employers about possible opportunities for their future. And I’m sure some were wondering why there was someone walking around the room the entire time on their phone taking pictures. #SocialMediaFun
It all worked out though. There was engagement that came out of it—retweets (one from the college itself) and favorites so that was good! It became easier with the help of my supervisors and a professor advising me on some of the things I could tweet about and take photos of so that was a relief. That’s a good lesson—never be afraid to ask for help or advice.
Going through this experience, I hope I’m even more ready and prepared for the next event that can be live tweeted.
In other news, I started really getting into scheduling and posting on Facebook and Twitter with engaging questions, quotes and hashtags for various days of the week. (#MotivationMonday, #TechTuesday, #FridayFunny, etc.) I’m glad I’ve finally put together a spreadsheet that I can plan weeks in advance to schedule and check in from time to time on any new additions. It’s a great way to stay organized.
I’m thinking of ways to put together an Instagram as well. I’m excited to see where that goes!
Getting into the swing of things, Sept. 12
I’m still getting into the swing of things with this internship. It’s taking a lot of time management this semester in trying to find my rhythm in balancing various things. I’ve started posting on various social media sites though so I’m excited about that.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned already is how to balance my time. I’m working on a spreadsheet for the next month of postings for Facebook so I’ll be able to schedule all of those postings. I’m really excited about the posts! The challenging things is managing time and finding out the best times for postings that are sent. As my inbox fills up with homework and other responsibilities I have, it can become overwhelming at times. It is, nonetheless, a learning experience and throughout the semester, I’ll have to see what works best.
I’m also looking forward to working on projects I’ve never really had much experience in before. At my weekly check-in meeting, I learned I’ll be working on a newsletter and working on a new design program. I will also be live tweeting/posting on Facebook for an upcoming event. I have some experience with this but it will be a new atmosphere in which the postings are being done.
Until next week!
A new start, Sept. 6
Amidst getting adjusted to all of my classes this semester, I’ve also started a new internship. In this internship, I’ll be working on various social media platforms, designing some marketing material, and doing some blogging. It’s an exciting new start since the internship combines many different elements.
I’ve just begun thinking of things I want to post on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve thought about some of the hashtags I’d like to use as a weekly engagement theme and articles that could be posted as well. I want to be able to make engaging questions and attempt to involve many different types of ideas into the mix. I’ll be making a spreadsheet of things I want to post to organize my ideas.
Some of the things that I’d like to be able to post (in addition to what I’ll be getting sent) are quotes, photos, articles, engaging questions, memes, and more. I’m glad I’ll be able to use skills I’ve already learned to achieve these goals.
I completed my first assignment too. It was an announcement for them about the various things they do in their office. The first of many different things I’ll be working on this semester!
It’s still very much in the beginning stages of trying to sort through everything I’d like to do but I’m excited for this semester. I’m looking forward to taking skills I’ve already learned and applying them any way I can into what I’m doing now.
Erica Abbott 