How did you feel about the internship leading up to the start?
I felt a mixture of emotions. I was excited, optimistic, nervous – but mainly excited. I’m a Film graduate from UEA, and I was just so happy to be given an opportunity to break into a field that is somewhat relevant to my degree (I could tie the communicative aspect of my course to my new role – I am acting as a social media intern in the university’s Digital Marketing Team). I was, and still am, hoping that by spending time under the wider umbrella of “the media” it will help me to get where I eventually want to be: writing about and working with film.
What was your first day like?
My first day went really quickly! It was nice to meet everyone in the office (and others from A LOT of other departments). This is my first office-based, 9-5 job, so I was pretty content with just getting to work on time, learning about office etiquette and dynamics, and learning how the university operates! Of course, I was actually given proper duties. I was thrown in, relatively, at the deep end, and had to investigate the use and viewership of the university’s YouTube account (interesting to me, given my film background). I had to use YouTube analytics to create a report (made up of word documents and excel spreadsheets) of how successful or unsuccessful the university’s videos had been with users. I was also introduced to Meltwater (a system that manages all of the university’s correspondence through its main social media channels) and taught how to deal with the interaction coming in from around the globe.
What have you been up to each day in your first week?
Under the guidance of my boss (Jono Read, the university’s social media coordinator), I’ve been getting involved in, what I’d like to term as, PR tasks. I’ve been creating, monitoring and replying to content on the university’s media platforms. This is while using industry standard applications (like Meltwater), and understanding the intricate planning and the necessary reaction and evaluation that goes into a tweet, a Facebook message et al. I’ve had to create reports and statistics through research, and investigate whether the university is being portrayed in a negative or positive manner by people (students, parents, employees alike) on various outlets.
Using the university’s Facebook and Twitter is not as simple as how you’d treat a personal account, there are rules to go by and responses to understand; how and why have people responded to that particular piece of media in that way? How many people have actually responded? And so on and so forth. In the end everything you do, and everything you see others do, contributes to the overall image of the university – such is the importance of the virtual world nowadays.
What have you enjoyed the most about your first week?
Well, there’s so much you’re unaware of as a nonchalant student. Working here, you quickly begin to appreciate all the hard work of the thousands of staff that goes into making the “student experience”, and the university a great place to study and socialise. It really is one big ecosystem. That’s been a pleasant revelation.
Mostly, though, I’ve really enjoyed reading student opinions about the university. Seeing as I’m no longer a student (that wound is still fresh), there’s a slight sense of catharsis and melancholy in seeing a lot of people discovering things or going through the same experiences that I did. Sat at a desk and staring at a screen, you’re strangely exposed to it all. It’s great to see so many people caring and being positive about a place you have a great connection to. Understanding where the communication is coming from has also proved a source of enjoyment (Meltwater can show geographically where people have messaged from). One person tweeted the university from North Korea, which I found absolutely fascinating and slightly demystifying of that entire country. I hope that person comes to UEA one day!
How do you think the next few weeks will be?
I’m looking forward to them. It’s an exciting time to be working at UEA in any capacity, with the influx of new students, the term starting up again, and the university’s 50th anniversary all on the horizon (it means plenty of activity for the social media team). Personally, I’m really eager to start using photography and filmmaking based social media (we’re thinking of starting up a Vine account). I also get to provide my own recommendations for a new strategy on how the university can improve its social media output, so I’ll be analysing all the latest and best media tools, from Google+ to LinkedIn. By the end of my 12 weeks I think I will have a far greater knowledge of the online market than when I came into the internship, and that can only be useful when applying for other jobs in the future.
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