Our first summer with interns was a smashing success! We had 3 incredibly talented and dedicated college students join our agency this summer in our first cohort of interns. Read on to hear what they learned this summer in their own words.
Jenna
During my time as a Social Media Marketing Intern with Media À La Carte, I gained new insight into the professional world of social media. I was exposed to new strategies, processes, and platforms by working on projects that highlighted all different aspects of content creation. I learned the importance of individual brand voice and audience by completing work for various clients. I learned professional skills through communicating with my team, learning from my supervisors, and collaborating with my fellow interns. I have gained an appreciation for the demanding skillset
of a social media manager. Being a successful social media manager means filling multiple roles in an agency, being confident in all types of content creation, and balancing this between multiple platforms and clients. The amount of time and energy that is put into research, strategy, understanding of trends, popular language, catchphrases, and more, can make or break a brand’s social media presence.
My internship has taught me the meaning of working in the social media industry. I have always been fascinated with the way that media has the power to influence society around us. Whether it’s to educate, engage, entertain, or appeal to emotion, each purpose is an important one to be fulfilled when we consume digital media. Social media has the potential to not only serve these purposes to audiences but create communities within them. No matter how many careers change, the ability to engage other people through content isn’t going away. MALC strengthened this idea for me and showed me the importance of being creative and embracing the constant change in the industry. It is a profession that keeps you on your feet, and the skills and understanding that I have gained through interning with MALC are going to be valuable for a long time because social media isn’t going away anytime soon.
Layla
This summer, I hoped to gain technical social media skills to bring to future projects. Working as a remote intern at Media À La Carte was my first behind-the-scenes glance at the internal workings of a social media agency. Clients come to Media À La Carte for a vast array of services beyond social media management, including acting as the face of brands whose owners wish to remain unidentified on social platforms.
Through this experience, I navigated applications social media specialists use to oversee client profiles. My fellow interns and I used Planoly and Later to write copy for scheduled client posts. For team communications, we would use a Slack channel, as opposed to text/Google chat/Email, linked to our team ClickUp. Slack was the hub for communication and logistical planning outside of our Zoom meetings. Because it was linked to ClickUp, we would get notifications whenever tasks were created or completed. It was helpful to be able to follow assignments’ progress. ClickUp, similar to Asana or Monday, was key for knowing what was due and when. I recommend this system for businesses. I am more of a paper planner kind of girl, but by the end of the summer, I grew to love the sound of Slack notifications.
We used Canva when creating graphics for Media À La Carte’s social media. We all had Canva experience coming into the summer, but Media À La Carte has Canva premium, where they can store personal and client brand kits. Having colors, fonts, and logos easily accessible in a brand kit when creating a graphic was instrumental. It saved time that would have otherwise been spent searching for color codes or uploading images and typefaces. We created several brand kits, and I’m glad I know about this feature.
Working in social media means spending A LOT of time on your phone. In this role specifically, much of that phone time was attributed to Media À La Carte's specialty: outbound engagement. Working as an SMM while trying to grow your platforms and audience requires you to possess extreme passion for content creation, trends, and algorithm changes. You’re planning ahead while religiously trying to figure out what works for your audience and for you. At the end of the day, social media is still a new realm and occupations like SMMs are newer. Numbers don’t lie so make sure you understand insights and analytics when pitching ideas or explaining what’s working. I’m walking out of this with an educated perspective regarding the work SMMs do.
Leea
When I decided to uproot my life and move to New York City for the summer, I was so excited for a new beginning. New environment, new internship, new opportunities, new people; all of the exciting emotions of starting something new.
When I started working for Media À La Carte, I was extremely excited to try something new as social media has been more of a self-taught hobby I picked up in the last few years. There was a lot to learn, and now as I am wrapping up my summer as an intern, I can definitely say I have learned a lot.
One of the biggest things I learned this summer was how to encompass the voice of each brand I worked with. Every brand has its own goals in how they want to show up on social media. Whether this is a fun, lighthearted voice, more of a serious tone, or something on the more sarcastic side, it’s essential to follow the vibe they are going for. It can be intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s super fun to interact on these accounts with their unique brand voices.
Another thing I accomplished over the course of my internship was how to write copy for our accounts. When I first heard that we would be learning how to write copy, I honestly had no idea what that meant. For those of you who were like me a few months ago, it just is a fancy word for writing for advertisements or social media. I started looking forward to copywriting for accounts this summer because I got to use my creative side in encompassing the brand voice in the form of Instagram captions. (Even though I dread coming up with captions for my personal account.)
This summer has been absolutely incredible and rewarding as I have expanded my passion for social media marketing and would love to continue in this field in the future.
If you're interested in joining our fall intern cohort, send an email stating why you would be a good fit for the internship with your resume and a writing sample attached, along with your social media handles to alexandra@mediaalacarte.com. The deadline to apply is Friday, August 19th.
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