I’ve had my fair share of internships throughout the years. Some were great, but some were dull. While these internships offered me the title of “Marketing Intern” or “Promotional Sales Intern,” I quickly found out that my job description basically consisted of grunt work and sales.
While I understand the need for interns and “paying your dues,” my previous experiences left me with a bad taste in my mouth regarding internships in general. I was ready to learn about the industry and enhance my skills, not enter emails into a database and call it “marketing.”
Cue my internship with Market My Market. My interview went smoothly, I was offered the position, and told that I could work remotely throughout the summer. At first, I was a bit skeptical, remembering my previous job descriptions and trying to figure out how I got duped again. Thankfully, I was wrong. I can proudly say that my time at Market My Market has taught me a great deal about digital marketing, content writing, and how to do it all remotely.
My Experience
From my very first day of logging in, my skills were put to the test. I worked with my supervisor to set up my email, log-in to our various communication platforms and introduced to the clients. At first, it was honestly a bit overwhelming. I had all this information given to me at once and thought I was expected to be a professional by the end of the conversation.
What’s more, I was working by myself, hundreds of miles away from the rest of my coworkers. Though I put on a brave face (or at least I think I did), I definitely had some moments where I questioned my capabilities.
However, I consider myself a sharp woman, and with the patience and advice from my colleagues, I was quickly able to get into the swing of things. Pretty soon I was writing up to four blog posts in one day and editing content – something that seemed impossible to me at the beginning.
As the weeks progressed, I was given more and more responsibility. I learned about our clients, internal linking, SEO, posting content on WordPress, and even a bit about HTML and CSS. Though it may seem like a lot, it was all worth it. I find myself walking away from this internship with much more knowledge than I came in with, something I couldn’t say about previous internship experiences.
Working remotely presented its own challenges at times, but it also taught me many new lessons. After reflecting on my internship, I’ve come up with some skills that I learned by working as a remote intern for Market My Market.
Time Management
Though I had certain tasks to complete each day, working remotely meant that I didn’t have anyone looking over my shoulder at all times. My schedule worked out to be around five hours a day, four days a week. With only so much time in the day, it’s essential to learn excellent time management.
Regardless of how many pieces of content I had to write in a day, I learned always to remember that quality is better than quantity. Hurrying through blogs just to get them done is not worth it. After all, the work we do is for real clients and published on their sites, and I take pride in producing quality content each time.
While I knew I couldn’t rush through each task for the day, I also knew that I couldn’t spend forever researching, writing, and rewriting my content. At the end of the day, efficiency is key. Finding the perfect balance between quality and quantity proved to be incredibly important throughout the internship.
Eliminate Distractions
Working from home can, quite honestly, be very distracting. The first half of the summer I had roommates walking in and out of my house, loudly watching the television, and burning food in the kitchen. The second half of the summer I was surrounded with two very loving (and needy) dogs, and annoying siblings.
To complete my tasks and practice time management, I had to learn how to eliminate distractions. More often than not I rented a space at the library to work or took advantage of the privacy of my room. Removing distractions is crucial, so when you don’t have a home office, you have to make do.
Effective Communication
Our team used Slack to correspond with one another. Though you can voice chat and video call, I predominately communicated with my supervisors via messages. What this meant was that if I had any questions, comments, or concerns, I couldn’t merely wander over to my coworker’s desk to speak with them.
No one wants to be bombarded with 50 messages all at once to answer a simple question. When you work remotely, you have to learn on-the-fly when you can and communicate with your coworkers efficiently and effectively when you must.
I learned to ask the essential questions whenever necessary, but try to keep them concise and to the point. Doing so allowed for my coworkers and me to stay on task and get things done.
Adaptability
As everyone knows, life is unpredictable. The content I wrote was continually cycling between writing, editing, approval, more editing, and posting. If that doesn’t seem like enough, there were some days when something else came up that was put as my priority.
Working remotely doesn’t give you the opportunity to hear about what your coworkers are doing or hear about any hiccups that arise. You only know as much as they tell you, and you have to be willing to listen at all times.
Sometimes your tasks change. Sometimes you have to work a little bit late. Adapting to the uncontrollable circumstances that happen in marketing is vital to participating in your group’s effort, even if you’re not in the office.
Overall, my experience as a content writing intern at Market My Market went better than expected. I learned dozens of new skills, pushed myself to work hard, and met some pretty cool people along the way. I’m grateful for my time at Market My Market and look forward to using what I’ve learned to continue my professional success.