Goodbye and a tiny cactus

I’m finished! It was 10 of the toughest weeks of my life trying to juggle my internship, my usual job and three other uni units – but it was one of the most important and uplifting career experiences I’ve had.

Here are some of important nuggets of wisdom I’ve learnt through my internship at LiveLighter that I’d like to pass on to you all:

1. By August this year, Facebook will make changes to reduce newsfeed "clutter" from organisation's pages. This will mean that organisations' posts will have next to no organic reach. This essentially means that organisations (both businesses and not-for-profits) will have to pay to boost almost all of the Facebook content they post, rather than relying on it being organically shared to their followers and through likes and shares to non-followers. This will mean that organisation’s Facebook posts will likely become less frequent, but more professional. Social media managers will have to consider the organisational benefits of each Facebook post (as they are putting money behind it) and will have to be looking more closely at KPIs to make sure their Facebook posts are worth the financial investment. These changes will likely impact you just as you’re starting to get jobs at the end of this year – so keep this in mind.

2.       2.  A useful exercise to ‘sharpen’ an organisation’s social media presence is to come up with a very specific profile of a hypothetical person who fits into your target audience. For LiveLighter, the Comms team came up with the hypothetical person “Tracey Turner.” Tracey is a mum in her late forties, works as a part-time receptionist at her local tyre power, likes Take 5 magazine and Today Tonight, and has tried a number of different diet programs but keeps putting the weight back on. Before creating a Facebook post we would have to think “how can I make this post appeal to Tracey?” which helped us to make sure we were creating content that was actually engaging our target audience.

3.       3. Pay attention to who’s liking your content on different social media platforms. LiveLighter’s Facebook was mostly middle-aged women who were looking to make lifestyle changes for themselves and their family, whereas LiveLighter’s Twitter following was mostly health professional looking for resources to share with their patients and clients. We had to tailor different posts for each platform to cater for these specific audiences.

4.       4. Bring a notepad and pen with you everywhere! You may think you can remember everything that’s discussed in a meeting, or all the points your manager wants you to include in the media release, but I can assure you that you won’t. Good note-taking will ensure you’re not annoying people by asking them to repeat what they said.

5.      5.  Blogging is still a thing. I’ve had many blogging-based assignments for my Internet Communications degree and always complained that nobody still reads blogs. But they actually do – LiveLighter’s health advice blog is one of their most successful social media platforms.

6.      6.  Only wear dresses and skirts you’d be comfortable climbing up stairs in to your internship. If it’s going to shimmy up your thighs as you’re climbing, leave it in the wardrobe.

7.     7.   I’d also recommend getting your mentor and other team members you worked closely with a small present to say thank-you for taking you on as an intern. It leaves a positive lasting impression of you as a worker and person. I got everyone in my team a bunch of flowers, and they got me a tiny cactus (I know you were wondering how the cactus comes into it).

Thank you for reading my blog posts. I'll continue to follow your internship adventures.

All the best,

Bec