This summer I was fortunate to do collaborative working with Ella Proudlock who was an intern from Cambridge University. Normally an intern would work in the office with me; as well as attending meetings and events. However, we were able to work remotely to deliver some great results. This is a blog by Ella, highlighting what she learnt.
Hi I’m Ella, and I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to intern here at the Superstar Communicator supporting Susan on her social media and marketing profile for the last two and a half months. I’m so grateful to have been given the chance to have some work experience during this strange lockdown / vacation period and I’ve had a really great time working for Superstar Communicator – so thank you Susan!
This internship has given me my first insight into the business world that I previously had not had the chance to experience, and it’s this new knowledge that I want to share. While working with Susan, my role involved providing creative input in support of her website and social media profile, along with research and some general admin. Below I’ll talk about some of the top tips I’ve learnt during this internship:
1. Be Open to Feedback
At the start of the internship Susan invited me to join a meeting with a marketing professional who had been analysing the Superstar Communicator digital presence. The meeting was really useful to have at the start of my work, as it helped give clear guidelines for what was required, both in terms of the content and style needed. It was especially eye-opening for my first internship experience, as I always find that feedback is one of the best ways to grow and develop either as an individual or as a business.
2. Produce good content and then make sure people know about it!
Susan was already well-established when I joined her as an intern, which was great as it meant she had plenty of premium content to work with, from her myriad of podcasts, blogs and articles, to the numerous testimonials and feedback she receives from her many happy clients. Using these I was then able to focus on creating and delivering high quality professional images for the brand, including quotes and covers for both the podcasts and social media accounts. It has been really rewarding to see the positive reactions to the testimonials and podcast quote images that I’ve designed and published on the Superstar media channels.
3. Research is vital – understand your market / potential customer
One of the challenges Susan set me was to assist in her intentions to expand into the Asia-Pacific and Middle Eastern markets. My task was to find potential new leads across numerous countries, before providing a filtered list for her to quickly and easily access. This was to give her a more targeted set of potential future clients. It was clear to me that without research like this businesses can struggle to achieve growth, especially small businesses who have limited time to focus on lead discovery. This kind of research will ultimately help businesses to increase the chance of gaining new clients and work.
4. A great boss really helps!
This internship has been not only an educational experience but also one that has been truly enjoyable. Susan has been lovely, both guiding and supporting but also trusting me to work more independently as well – even giving me sole responsibility for managing her social media accounts at one point!
But most of all, thank you to Susan for letting me have this opportunity! I’ve really enjoyed my time working here, she’s been so professional but also fun to work with and I really feel that I’ve come away from this with so much more knowledge and skills to help me in any career. I wish her every success and if you ever get the chance to work with Susan I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
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