Week 7: Meeting the Gang Again

This week Tressa emailed the SWAN-terns asking us to meet up again. I'm excited to start up more things again. So next week, we will have another meeting discussing No Name.

This week, though, I have basically been doing the same thing as last week. Responding to emails, connecting with followers on Twitter, answering questions. I really love social media, but I hate researching, for sure.

Helping Tressa figure out Youtube is fun, though. And I love working with the Sisters Sorella website. There's always some new problem that occurs everyday.

I think that may be the biggest lesson I've learned so far. That I might not like a specific part of a job, but I can't always get what I want. Tweeting wouldn't be so easy if I didn't spend hours looking at who my audience is and which tweets they interact with more.

Tweeting isn't easy, for sure.

Next week things should pick up a little bit more, so I guess I'll have more to discuss then.

Week 6: Moving on to the Sisters

SWAN Day is long gone, and this week was spent sharing articles written about the event, and just helping Tressa with anything she needed.

I'll admit it: this week was boring.

After the Sister Sorella web series aired on Monday, there really wasn't anything for me to do. I have made sure I am available for anything, and I get small tasks here and there. Mostly running the No Name Players Twitter, which is no filled with Sorella paraphernalia. Helping the Sorella interns is fun, though. I really like the show, and since I had the experience with the focus group a few weeks ago, I feel like I know more than my other interns on this subject.

I guess what I learned this week, is that companies can have many different projects going on, and that no project is "more important" than another.

Jumping from Twitter to Twitter account has definitely taught me that.  

Week 5: SWAN Day

SWAN Day was yesterday, and it was a huge success. Seeing everything come together after just weeks of being apart of this team was such a great experience.

On Friday I spent several hours helping my bosses set up for the Saturday. I may be just a social media intern, but when working with a small business like No Name Players, everyone is needed to chip in a little bit. I was there almost all night, helping tech rehearsal, setting up the art gallery, even making origami swans. I finally got to use Snapchat, so I was really excited about that. Unfortunately, although my idea was great, I think Snapchat was a dud. I'm just not sure No Name's audiences are really into Snapchat all that much. It kind of broke my heart because I know it was a good idea, just not for them.

All day for SWAN day I was on Twitter. Live-tweeting, posting videos and photos, sending content to our other interns (I was the only one to make it that night) and helping Tressa make sure everyone was having fun.

The night was also great for networking. I met people who run some Pittsburgh based blogs and I got their cards--I would have never met them without this internship.

This week was really great, and I feel so lucky to be apart of this experience.

Week 4: SWAN Day v Sisters Sorella

So, No Name Players has two teams of interns: three of us work with SWAN Day, and two work with Sisters Sorella. Sisters Sorella is a web series that No Name Players produce. The series launches the Monday after SWAN Day, so the theatre is pretty busy these days.

I actually got to work with the Sisters Sorella group on Tuesday when I was able to see my first live focus group. My supervisor, Tressa asked the SWAN-terns (SWAN Day Interns) if anyone can come live tweet the first screening of Sisters Sorella since the Sorella interns live further away from Pittsburgh. I was really excited about this since I love theatre, so I said of course. It turns out that I was the only intern able to make it, so I got to live-tweet all by myself. I set up a little Social Media station in the back of a large room filled with tables, and got to work.

At the start of the screening, the Sisters Sorella stars introduced themselves and talked a little about the show. After that they left the room. 25 or so people and I stayed behind to watch several episodes of the series. Then, a staff member at No Name passed out these papers that had questions about the show, including what they liked, didn't like, what they would change, etc.

It was really weird for me to live-tweet at first. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to write, or what photos to take. I think I kind of got in the groove after a few minutes, though. I took a picture of the audience, I tweeted some of the audience's comments on the show. I even did what I call cross-tweets (I don't know the correct term) where I posted a tweet on the Sisters Sorella page, and then retweeted it on the No Name page.

All in all, it was a pretty good week. I learned a lot about live-tweeting, which I'm sure will come in handy again.

Week 3: Getting it Done

Working from home with an internship can be proven difficult. Luckily No Name Players is in Pittsburgh, and my boss has weekly meetings with her interns. These meetings are great. All four of us (three interns and our supervisor, Tressa) talking about our opinions on how to get SWAN Day out there is amazing. I love working with more brains than my own because I get to see things in different perspectives.

I have been assigned Twitter for my specific social media platform to work with. Twitter is a lot of fun. I'm seeing how easy it is for followers to directly connect with businesses and I am amazed at how far technology has come in just 10 years, even. I often wonder how marketers were able to do all of this in the 80's without sending 140 characters of a tweet. We're lucky to be able to utilize these platforms to reach such large audiences.

I'm learning things everyday, though, which is awesome. I learn how to consolidate my thoughts in small tweets without leaving out vital information that my followers need. I have learned how to engage audiences in photos that send them to our Instagram and Facebook pages so they learn even more about SWAN Day.

I have even learned how to use Twitter to see what my followers actually click on, which has been very helpful, as I now know they like photos more than my words.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to use Snapchat yet, because there really isn't anything to document. I'm hoping SWAN Day gives me a ton of excuses to do quick Snapchat videos, but we will see.

Week 2: Getting in the Swing of Things

Making sure a post is on Twitter every day is difficult. It isn't like it's a personal tweet, "Just got a grande iced coffee at Starbucks #blessed," No. This is a job. I have to promote SWAN Day. Let the people know the date, the time, the location. Who the artists are.

I thought it was going to b easier. Keeping up with the hour-to-hour tasks. Tweet a little here, tweet a little there. Unfortunately Social Media is a little more difficult than people think. When I told my friends and family that I got this internship they told me it sounded like an easy feat. Let me tell you, they were wrong. I have to research my audience to see what kind of posts they actually want to see. I need to put X amount of info in each tweet, but not too much, because I want people to be interested.

Exhausting.

But I found out that if I balance my "boring tweets" with more photos and profiles of artists, that people do engage more. I even had my first experience with boosting tweets. I actually think this feature is pretty cool. It puts a specific tweet on people's home page without having that person follow you. Said person is found through their interests and other things.

Altogether, this week was a week full of interesting learning experiences that I'm sure to use even in my personal life.

Week 1: Strange and New

This week was my first week in my new internship. Mostly, my duties were to familiarize myself with the company. Once I was assigned a project (Team SWAN) I began strategizing ways to reach more audiences through social media.

Being on Team SWAN means that I, and three other interns, are to update No Name Players social websites on information about SWAN Day 2016. Before being offered this internship I had never heard of SWAN Day or even No Name Players Theatre in any case. SWAN means "Support Women Artists Now," and I believe in this whole movement wholly. As a feminist, I am delighted to work with this group.

The Snapchat I made for the company.

The social media sites my team are supposed to post on are the company's Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. At our first meeting on Friday, I brought up the idea for us to create a Snapchat to share backstage information with photos and videos. My boss loved the idea and gave e the task of creating it. Another one of my suggestions were "15 second videos" that can be posted on Instagram and Twitter. These videos can be super short, one question interviews or snippets of rehearsals. I also brought up the idea of making longer versions of these videos to post along with biographies on Facebook. My last suggestion was to post "TBT's" (or Throwback Thursday photos) on all social sites to show past SWAN Days, since this is the companies seventh time hosting.

My supervisor, Tressa, mentioned that the company is a partner to seven other companies that all host their own SWAN Days. Since there is a company in Connecticut that is hosting theirs on the same day as ours, March 5, I mentioned that we should get in touch with them to have live Periscope-esque showings of specific events throughout the day.

I really love it so far, although we have not done much yet. Most of the work will be closer to the SWAN Day date, but I can tell that I have a knack for social media marketing. I'm pleased with this finding because that is what I want to do once I graduate next year.