Learning from a Mastermind

This semester I was fortunate enough to be a social media intern with one of center city’s newest ad agencies, Masterminds.

This full service ad agency original office is in Atlantic City, NJ and they cater to travel and leisure clients. They opened a second office in Philadelphia in September of last year. I learned a great deal from the people who make up their company and even freelanced for them for a bit. Since they cater to clients such as hotels, casinos and vacation destinations, my internship was fun but very technical.

I never knew how much the law factored into social media. But there are many rules and guidelines for almost every social media site and they change very frequently. For example, one of their clients runs Facebook promotions or contests about once a month. When you are planning these contests you have to think about federal laws, state laws and of course the sites own set of rules and regulations. Many companies are actually running illegial Facebook promotions and are just not getting caught. So as Facebook continues to make changes every week I am glad I know the basic do’s and don’ts of their promotions.

Overall, I had a great experience interning at Masterminds and I can attribute some of why I was there to a very important skill I learned while I was a student at Temple. As graduation draws nearer I can honestly say that networking is one of the of the most important things I will take away from my time in Philadelphia. I met someone who worked at Masterminds a few years ago through the Philly Ad Club. This combined with constantly keeping up with what agencies and brands are doing in the area you want to be in is key. I knew Masterminds was opening an office in Philly and I reached out to them before they even posted about the internship being available in Philadelphia. It never hurts to reach out to someone because you will probably be surprised by the results.

Networking and staying in touch with others has even helped me land my first job! I am very excited to have started working as a social media specialist at Bad Rhino in Wayne, PA.

It is a social media company that an old neighboor of mine currently works at part time. She was the one who introduced me to her boss when they were growing and thinking of hiring some new people. My few internships I have had in social media showed me that was an area I wanted to work in after graduation. I couldn’t be happier that I get to work in a field I love and have a job a few weeks before I graduate. So my advice to students is don’t overlook the power of networking and make sure you get everything you can out of an internship. It might even help to intern at a few places over the course of a few semesters to see where you might want to be after graduation. I love social media but I did not know I wanted to or even could work in that area until I had two internships in the field. But I am glad I did and it just makes my experience at Temple even better. Graduation is a bittersweet moment but I feel like I am ready for whatever might happen next!