Learning the Fundamentals of Working for a Non-Profit
Working at the Philadelphia Film Society as a marketing assistant has taught me the importance of marketing in a nonprofit organization. Initially, when I entered the internship I suspected my roles would involve a great deal of calling, asking for donations, working on out of home advertisements, and any other free forms of marketing one would suspect a non-profit to use.
However, over the past two months at PFS I have been able to broaden my horizons not just in marketing, but specifically in social media marketing. Rather than making monotonus phone calls as I expected I would be, my days are filled with compiling emails and information about different people and groups to market to, as well as curating emails and Facebook posts about relevant events the Film Society has going on.
Learning to use social media to market has been gratifying, as it helps me see direct results, as opposed to more traditional forms of advertising. For example, when I create a Facebook post, I can immediately see not only how many people are interested in the event, but how many are going and how many people engaged with the post overall.
Additionally, my time at the Film Society has also taught me about creating and managing a Facebook group for an organization. Since working there, another intern and I have created a Facebook group for the Film Society geared towards directors and I have learned to compose content for the group. Learning to create relevant content for a Facebook group has been interesting in itself, as it requires you to put yourself in the shoes of the person consuming it, and try to develop something they would not only like, but would actually engage in.
The past two months have taught me that working in a nonprofit calls for creative solutions to problems, especially creative solutions in how to get your message to the public. I’m thankful that my initial expectations of PFS, phone calls and fliers, was not what I was met with; rather, PFS has called on me to have a better understand of the people we are marketing to and how to engage them on social media.
