Intern Promotions DO Exist!

After about two months of being at my internship, I was promoted (without pay) to an editor of one of my company’s websites. I-g Creative is a marketing and online publishing company with about five different websites on different topics and areas of our work. Each of these websites are also heavily dependent on their social media presence and the content produced by employees.

When I started interning with i-g Creative, my responsibilities were to attend and research events throughout Philadelphia so that I could take pictures and write articles about them to be posted on their sites and sent out through Facebook and Twitter. Through the success and popularity of multiple articles I wrote, I was asked to become editor of their website, thisisitphilly.com and be in charge of the site’s social media. It was clear at that point that I had been working harder, producing better work, and showed a willingness to take on more responsibility that the other interns had not. My bosses clearly took notice of these qualities, and when their client work increased and they needed additional help, I was the one they went to.

This bump in rankings brought on a new level of responsibility, trust, and notability for me within the company. What this new title entails is taking the articles that my fellow interns write, edit them, post them directly to the website, and then record who wrote articles when, and about what. Additionally, I have to take those articles and post them to our own Twitter and Facebook (which I have full and complete access to) as well as any social media sites that are related to the articles topic or content. The idea is that I control where, when, and how much content is being shared from thisisitphilly.com, and my goal is to make those articles be seen by as many people as possible.  As excited as I was (trust me, I was on cloud nine after getting the news) I knew this meant a lot more work, both in and out of the office, and that I had a lot more at stake.

Since my promotion, things have continued to run smoothly. I have made myself pretty comfortable in my position, and have even begun to direct what type of content I would like on the website. Obviously, I feel like I am making a really good impression on my boss, and I have begun making suggestions about things to change and things I would like to accomplish. As part of the job, I am expected and have been taking liberties of my own, making minor changes to things on Facebook and Twitter, as well as creating posts and comments of my own about what I think is relevant to our followers.  Without a doubt being an editor is A LOT more work, and I spend much of my extra time (the little bit I have) doing things for the websites.  But at the same time, to be able to add “Editor” to my resume and maybe even have the possibility of a full time job upon graduation is a opportunity I could never refuse.

This higher position has also been an invaluable learning experience for me. I use programs like WordPress, Google Docs, Photoshop (for watermarking pictures we post) and many others on a daily basis. All of these programs, as well as the Social Media sites and Interactive components are very important tools in my industry that are not taught extensively in the classes I take. Also, since the content and look of the website is now a direct reflection of me, I have begun to write more articles about things I would like to see, again, I’m doing more work, but creating a better end result. Once again, despite taking on a world of responsibility, I think being promoted has made me work harder to produce better results and has taught me things that cannot be learned in school and only come from real world experiences.