Learning to Walk the Walk
My name is Carly Tokarski, and throughout the past three months I have been interning with Maiden Media Group located in Old City, Philadelphia as an Account Management intern. Starting out, my idea of an internship was an experience filled with filing papers, grabbing coffee, and doing all the not-so-great busy work that no one else wanted to do. To my surprise, within my first few weeks of being at Maiden, I was assigned as the Account Manager for a non-profit organization, The Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and their upcoming Walk + Run Against Hunger. The work the other interns and I would be doing was pro-bono, which was perfect for us… no money, no (er… not SO much) stress! I, along with the design and development interns would be increasing engagement via Facebook and Twitter between the Coalition and potential walk/run participants. We also came up with the idea to put together a microsite which would syndicate all tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram photos that used the hashtag “#fighthunger” on the day of the walk.
Being in charge of social media engagement and staying up-to-date with the design and development of the site were my main duties for the two months that went into preparing for this huge event. This was all so exciting for me because not only was I doing real work, but I was enjoying it… and learning so much along the way! Through time, I learned the process of putting together a contact list, what real, commercial Tweeting was all about, and how to be a good Account Manager (i.e. creating timelines, understanding deadlines, and holding status meetings). This experience even opened my eyes to the world of non-profits which, surprisingly, I am very interested in now and even am considering job searching for!
By the week of the event, the microsite was creating (and looked AWESOME), info. cards were printed for disbursement at the walk, and everyone at Maiden was signed up to participate and help work as a “street team” to contribute media to the site we created. On Saturday, Apri 14th, the entire Maiden Media team geared up and set out for the Art Museum.
It was an amazing feeling having everyone at Maiden behind us every step of the way. All the help and coaching from them contributed the the great end result. The experience taught me so much about my interests and capabilities as a potential Account Manager.
