8 Week Internship Recap

8 weeks later and I have arrived at the final few days of my internship. I have had an amazing opportunity to meet new people, make new contacts, and learn material that I had only a general knowledge base about prior to the summer. Over the next two days I will be finalizing the layout and content of my final presentation for my clients. This is where I will showcase the social media matrix, influencer identification glossary, and social media strategy I have been diligently working on for the past two months. I will be walking away from this internship with not only a potential career path in mind, but also new friends and colleagues that have been a pleasure to learn from and work with.

Social Media Strategy

After doing some comparative research on available social media management tools I have come to the conclusion that HootSuite will definitely be of use. The free account is available for up to five social media profiles-- a perfect amount for the stage that my clients are currently at. I have also looked into Google Alerts as a content generation tool. The goal of this strategy is to take into account that there may not be a social media specialist on my clients' team to generate content and manage social media. With that being said, I have been looking for alternative ways for my clients to effectively manage their own social media presence. Google Alerts seems to be an simple and time effective way to locate potential leads for content.

Recap of Final Projects

I wrapped up my second to last project, influencer identification and sequential analysis, a few days ago and began my homestretch project: the social media strategy. I had planned ahead and looked into an editorial calendar to pitch to my clients, but after more communication I realized that idea wasn't completely logical at this point in time for their company. Since then, I have been looking into social media management tools like HootSuite and Buffer in hopes of rounding out a more useful, cost effective and time efficient strategy.

Crisis Management in the Digital Age

To better understand the landscape of a social media strategy, I have been reading "Social Media: How to Enrage, Share, and Connect" by Regina Luttrell. One of the topics discussed in the book is on crisis management. Coming from a cyber security background, the importance of mitigating risk and risk prevention are ingrained in a student from the start. I would have thought that crisis management for digital media would be a completely different realm compared to cyber security-- but it's actually quite similar. Prepare in advance, isolate the origin, evaluate the impact, mitigate the crisis, and (in my opinion the most important part) learn from the crisis.

Project Expansion

As many people working with start-up businesses can say, flexibility and adaptability become necessary skills to successfully move forward on progress. I have certainly grown more as an individual harnessing these two skills during my internship than I thought I would. With that being said, it has been extremely important to be flexible with not only my outlook on each project I work on, but flexible with my own schedule outside of work. The clients I work with were pleased by my reports and efforts so much so for a particular project, that they have asked me to continue that work and broad my search. The influencer identification has thus been extended for more focus. This has required me to plan ahead on scheduling and fit in more hours into a tightly packed list of responsibilities.

Passed the Google Analytics Certification Exam

About 20 minutes ago, I passed the Google Analytics Certification exam on my second try. The score for passing sits at a manageable 80% and I was fortunate to have scored an 85%. After studying for a few weeks, I am pleased to say that this portion of my internship requirements is complete. My certification is valid for the next 18 months before I need to be recertified.

Week 5 Recap

Searching for influencers can be a daunting task especially with the vastness of blogs, open forums, and twitter hashtags. Though my first search was successful, I have decided to broaden my outlook and move focus to professional publications. Having a knowledge base of what the employees of potential clients for this product are saying and where they are talking is important-- but so is knowing where the CEOs and corporation owners are looking. All of these factors determine who sees my client's product and, ultimately, how effectively the information comes across to them.

Week 5 In Review

This past weekend I moved onto the first phase of my next project: identifying influencers. With this, an important point of clarification was brought up. What exactly is an "influencer?" In any work environment, communication is extremely valuable and necessary for productivity and efficiency. So not to waste valuable time researching in a direction that ultimately had nothing to do with the "influencers" my clients were looking for, we had in depth conversation about the subject. We classified an influencer as anyone who had a voice on issues that my clients were looking to work with. Anyone from employees to employers to casual individuals interested the specific topics we are covering. The goal is to identify who is doing the talking and where these conversations are being had. All of this work allows my clients to find their specific audience so they can more accurately tailor their product to those who will use it and spread the word about it.

Week 4 Recap

With busy schedules, finding a time to chat last week was not possible. Thus, my scheduled projects were extended. Submitting my final work for analyzing competitor social media platforms was positively received. Though the list is ongoing, so far I have researched 30 possible competitors and all forms of social media they possess. I took this list and compressed it into an Excel spreadsheet with interactive hyperlinks. The clients now have easy access to their competitors through one structured platform.

Week 4 in Review

After the clinic meeting Wednesday night, I was able to connect with one of my fellow interns and receive a lead on how to implement a professional social media strategy. Members of the internship have spoken highly of the book called "Social Media: How to Enrage, Share, and Connect" written by Regina Luttrell to gain insight on how to develop a social media strategy. Having guidance with this area will prove beneficial to my final project and the work that is required from this point on.

Google Analytics Studying

My first attempt at taking the Google Analytics Certification without completing all the available study material ended in failure-- but, fortunately not by much. This was to be expected as I am currently finishing unit two of Analytics Academy. The exam asks very specific questions about the tools that can be used in Google Analytics but it also asks application questions. I will need to focus more of my attention on going through the study material and physically matching what is being presented to what I see in my own tracking of this blog. On another note, the presentation of the exam was not as I had expected. Once a person answers a question they then unable to return back to a previous question the change an answer. Knowing this now will help me to better prepare for the next attempt in seven days.

Week Three Recap

Though my Independence Day holiday break was fulfilling, Tuesday marked the day to dive back into projects and responsibilities. Last night, I had a long over due progress report chat with the owners of the company. We discussed the second list of competitors/influencers I had researched the previous week and defined my projects moving forward. There are three main areas of focus I plan to tackle over the course of the next four weeks: Influencer identification, measurement and analytics of competitor social media presence, and social media mapping for the future use of my clients. To more clearly layout my thoughts I plan to compare and contrast the list of competitors by using a variety of graphs and visual aids. I believe these mediums will help make the data concise and highlight areas of importance for my clients to make quick references to.

On a side note, I plan to take my first attempt at the Google Analytics Certification later today to get a better understanding of how the exam is presented and the material that is covered. This will help me to more efficiently study and hone in on key concepts. 

Week(end) Two Recap

This past weekend my search for competitors in the safety, security, and health sectors of corporations began one again. However, this time I was provided with more specific details to comb the internet with. Though the research is ongoing, I have concluded on a brief overview of my progress which was sent to my superior. Research has become more fluid as there are a variety of avenues to which the product can be used to serve its clients. With the limitlessness of the internet, finding what avenues produce actual, beneficial leads seems like a daunting task. For me, this project became much more manageable once I had a better idea of what the product was and how it worked. I am currently awaiting response on whether or not I am on the right track with my research or if I should be focusing on a different direction.
On the other hand, the Google Analytics Academy alone is proving to be quite interesting in content, yet dry in presentation. Fortunately, I can use the Google Analytics that is connect to this blog to better understand some of the concepts and practice when needed in real-time.

Week One Recap

During Friday's weekly Google Hangout meeting with the clients, my current role as an intern became more direct and clear. One of the challenges of working with this start-up was deciphering the concept behind their intended product. As a visual and hands-on learner, understanding the scope of the product was much more difficult than I had first expected. After cross comparing different social media pages I had enough information to pitch my thoughts about the direction my clients could take at this stage in development for a social media presence. Part one of the project was complete.

The second part of last week's project morphed into researching different companies that could be potential competitors for one of the many facets my client's product has to offer. This was where the first obstacle came in to play: not having a firm grasp on what said product actually does. To better understand the concept, I complied and compressed all of the notes I had taken over the week and from our first meeting on July 17th. I sent my understanding of what the product was to the owners to have it "fact-checked" for accuracy. My questions were answered and I had a better understanding of what to look for when doing my research. After a few hours of researching leads that finally lead to the primary goal of locating competitors, I was ready to share my progress for the Friday meeting(s). 

Pursuing Google Analytics Certification

The certification I have chosen to pursue during the course of this internship is Google Analytics. On another note, Google Adwords looked interesting and could potentially be a future certification to pursue. The first reason I chose to pursue the Google Analytics certification was because it is actively used in my internship, specifically, in this blogging process. The other reason is because it sounds really cool. I'd like to know more about what I am doing with it and how it affects the world of Digital Media.

Internship Launch

Last Wednesday was the official launch date of my summer 2015 Digital Media Internship with Ann Arbor Spark and Eastern Michigan University's Center for Digital Engagement (CDE). It has been nearly a week since my first meeting with the start-up company I was paired with and the pace is rapidly starting to pick up. My co-intern, Mike, and I have created two primary projects to focus on for the first week or two of our internship. These projects are specific to the goals of our start-up and they include: remastering a website foundation and molding a social media presence online. Though Mike and I work well together and plan to collaborate on both of our projects, I chose to focus on the social media presence for our company.

Last Friday I took part in my first multi-person Google Hangout which resulted in productive communication about my project's course of action. Since I am a novice in realm of Digital Media, I have decided to take advantage of learning as I go along. To do this, I am researching a number of companies that could be considered competition to my company. I am then analyzing their social media presence to learn from their flaws and short-comings.