18MaiaR – CA Work Experience Program

Final Day

Today I wasn’t scheduled for an internship so I went to the Raleigh School where I interned during the year a little to help out. She is about to start teaching summer camps so I was helping prepare for those. I helped cut paper, put up tape borders for murals, prep some clay, and prepare some paint. It wasn’t the most challenging work but it was very helpful for her which was nice. Then at 2 Ms. Gucciardi from Dragonwing had a call to discuss Facebook ads. She gave me editing permission and it was so cool to see the Business Manager side of Facebook and all the trends it tracks. It has so many graphs about gender, time, type of post etc. When it comes to specific ads you can track how many views, how many clicks, how much money you make and lost. Also it was cool to learn that you can schedule when to posts and due to the trends you can find out the ideal time to post. For the rest of the day I am going to be making more ads for Facebook and Instagram and figuring out which ones are the best. I never knew how much and how many tiny little details went into setting up and launching a promotion. It was great opportunity and I think I’ve built a long lasting professional relationship.

Visit with Our State Magazine

Today I visited Our State Magazine in Greensboro. Our State is a lifestyle and culture magazine solely about the state of North Carolina. Today I met with Katie King the Editorial Assistant. She is in charge of editing the “Back in the Day”, “Primer”, “Departments”, and the “Quiz” page. She writes a few articles but mostly prefers to edit. I learned that the editing process begins with the writer sending the article to the editor. The editor then checks to see if there needs to major revisions and if there are it is sent back to the writer. Next they print out copies of the article and all the editors look over all the articles. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they edit on paper because one of my reservations with this sort of job and advertising is that it would all be done on the computer. We started with an info session and I learned that the magazine puts a lot of emphasis on photography and always includes a photo essay in every issue. The most surprising thing I learned is that they plan the magazine’s theme and articles 6 months to year in advance and they finish an issue about 2 months before it is released. That means that they have already almost finalized the 2019 issue and they have already commissioned the January 2019 articles. Right now they are finalizing the August issue. This timeline of planning and completing stuff so far in advanced is because the the articles are “evergreen” as they like to say. They talk about food, places, people not current events so its okay to plan so far in advanced. I finished my time with Our State with a tour and I got to see some of their magazine issues from the 1950s. The magazine has been around since 1933 and it was so cool to see the progression of the magazine. Overall it was an awesome experience and I learned a lot about magazines, their timelines and how all the departments work together. I definitely will look more into working for a publication as a job.

Day 2 with Valssis Digital

Today was my second and last day with Valassis Digital. I started off the day going over all the research I did and finding things to expand upon and clarify. Then for the next couple hours I worked to finish up the spread sheets. My boss scheduled a lunch for all of us in the Business Development Department so food was brought it and we all go the opportunity to sit down and talk about anything. It was very interesting and reassuring to learn the journeys my coworkers went through as well as how much/ how long it took them to realize what they wanted to do as a career. Also it was comforting to learn that your major doesn’t define the career you will go into, as one coworker majored in history and was then a consultant and now works at Valassis Digital. After lunch I had completed all my designated work so I got to do research about social influencers and the companies that manage and connect social influencers to the company trying to promote the product. It was a nice experience having a coworker give me and trust me to do completely new work just like in a real job. It was also so rewarding seeing my work be used in a professional manner. This experience was great and although working with Dragonwing was awesome, I appreciate that it gave a more realistic look at a sort of job I might have in the future.

Day 1 with Valassis Digital

Today was my first day working with Valassis Digital. Valassis Digital is a digital marketing and advertising agency that focuses on using digital ads so consumers buy national brands in retail stores rather than online. Valassis Digital is special because it prides itself on its defining characteristics of massive owned intelligence and ad safety. First Valassis receives information about consumer through internet habits, IP addresses, etc. Then using all this information Valassis maps devices to physical addresses to ensure consumers are receiving the proper sorts of ads. Valassis then works with advertisement branches of companies and outside consultants to ensure the proper type of ad reaches the proper audience. Through ad auctions that occur when a site page is loading, Valassis bids to have their ad shown. Secondly Valassis is known for ad safety because they use a special algorithm to weed out robots versus people. A lot of companies do not bother to do this because it can boost their profits; however, Valassis wants to make sure they are doing the best and most accurate job for the client.

I am working specifically in the Business Development sector of Valassis Digital. The Business Development team is in charge of figuring out and implementing where the business wants to be in 3 to 5 years. The BD team works closely with the product team to figure out who/what is the competition as well as what needs to be done in order to stay a competitive company. The Business Development team has 3 main choices when achieving a client’s goal. Valassis can partner, create the product ourselves or buy the product from another company. Valassis Digital is beginning to get into the pharmaceutical advertising business so today I researched possible conferences and consultants. I made spreadsheets with information about healthcare advertising conferences and possible healthcare advertising agency consultants. Overall it was an awesome day and I learned a lot.

Day 4 with Dragonwing Girlgear

Today was my last day working with Ms. Gucciardi on my website. We finalized the website and made sure that it looks good on phones as well as the computer. We also went over my ads and created a few more varieties to test color and copy. Also Ms. Gucciardi showed me the Facebook ad pages and how you can use facebook to track and control traffic to your site. We talked about warm and cold leads as well, warm being those who already know your site and cold being those who see your ad and are drawn to your site, with no prior personal connection or information. Lastly Ms. Gucciardi taught me about email funneling and how your activities on the site as well as on email can determine what sort of ads or deals you recieve. It was very interesting to learn all the behind the scenes that goes into advertising, but also a little scary to see how all your movements on the internet and tracked and analyzed. Today I focused a little more instagram ads and this weekend I will be in charge of releasing and keeping up with the dragonwing instagram. Later today we are going to release our first teaser ads and that site should be up by middle of next week. I am so happy to have had this opportunity and I have learned so much! It is so exciting learning so much and I so glad to have had such a real world experience in my field of interest!

Website Link (once released): https://dragonwingcampessentials-com.myshopify.com/

Instagram Username: @dragonwinggirl

Day 3 with Dragonwing Girlgear

Today I finalized my website and created ads for my website. I met with Ms. Gucciardi at Cafe Carolina to learn about advertising and awareness. It was very interesting to learn about how different platforms and types affect viewership and quality of ads. I got to look at sites like Mighty girls, and Amy Poelher’s Smart Girls to see an example and learn more about the style and client base I am looking to serve. I created 4 adds on canva using a facebook post template and I will also make an instagram add. It was a lot of fun getting to play around with the colors and testing out different styles and layouts. I tried to make different styles of adds to reach out to a wide audience. I learned a lot more about canva and all of its capabilities. Having only used it before for infographics at school using canva for ads was a much easier and rewarding experience. It took awhile at first to design my ads but once I got in a groove it was much easier. I will hopefully launch my site tomorrow and I am so excited!

Day 2 with Dragonwing Girlgear

Today I met with Ms. Gucciardi at the The Frontier, a collaboration space in RTP. It was a great space and it was so interesting and exciting to interact with such creative people. We started off in a conference room and then moved to the collaboration space. Today we expanded on what I did yesterday. I completed my clothing bundles and learned about SKU numbers, scarcity as a motivator, and pricing. I figured out pricing for my products as well as discounts for certain packages. I never knew how much went in behind the scenes to create websites. I learned so much, but again it was a little overwhelming. I love how much freedom I have and how many decisions I get to make. Typing in the SKU numbers was a little painstaking and took awhile, but definitely makes the site so much easier to use and manage. We also started to talk about methods of advertising and tomorrow we will create some ads. Can’t wait to do more!

Day 1 with Dragonwing Girlgear

Today was my first day working for Dragonwing Girlgear. Today I was able to work from home to create my website for their camp gear bundles. It was a little tricky at first figuring out how to use Shopify, but I picked it up pretty easily. Shopify was nice to use because it did give somewhat of a template while still allowing for me to make a lot of my own decisions. It got a little repetitive having to download and save all the merchandise photos, but in the end having so many photos really makes the site look great. It was so rewarding seeing all my progress as well as how professional my site looks. I am not the best at using computers and so there was definitely a learning curve for this site, but overall it went tremendously. I think my favorite aspect was getting to play around with the colors, fonts and layouts of the website, while the most challenging part was figuring out how to group, label and price all the products so they had consist naming and formatting throughout the site. I sadly cannot share pictures yet because the website is not yet released. I am so excited to see my final product as well as learn more about the advertising and marketing aspects to my product.