Six resources from my marketing internship

In a previous post, I explained how I began a second internship in a WeWork in an investment banking field. The first internship that I was working for was in a social media & marketing role. This experience was just as interesting and valuable as the other internship. Here are some of the tools and websites that I discovered while in the role from May till December 2019.

1) Hootsuite.com and later.com

These are two great websites for scheduling social media for my company on multiple platforms. This was an important tool I used in assisting my company's product launch. The main role of social media scheduling was it would allow for posts to be done during peak times and to tell our current customer base that we had a new improved product being released soon. I would recommend looking at these scheduling tools if you are creating any marketing campaign on social media. I enjoyed completing these posts on Sunday for weeks in advance when possible to allow for my headspace to be free from being preoccupied with creating good-quality posts. These tools allowed me to focus on other marketing tasks during the week.

Following social media algorithms and being aware of any changes on the platforms you are using, will allow for more effective marketing on social media. Any data analytic tools I'm sure will improve your reach too, I'm sure in 2021 there are more great free tools to use. Algorithms are in place to help the platform encourage users to create more content that the platform wants to produce more. For example, at the time I knew LinkedIn's algorithm was geared towards content creators creating more videos since the platform creators wanted to show more videos on the platform. If you don't follow these algorithms correctly you may be shadow-banned which means your posts will be hidden from your followers' feed.

Hootsuite and many other platforms social media scheduling appearance

I feel many marketers ignore the importance of the algorithms trends and neglect the responsibility of knowing if there are any changes in these patterns. If I was back in that role I would be watching the algorithms trends on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook touch similar to how a trader would watch share price changes on important companies. This is required from a marketer in 2021 in my opinion.

3) Alexa traffic rank free chrome extension

This chrome add-on ranks the popularity of a website on a national and global level. When you open a website and then the Alexa traffic rank extension it will rank that specific website on viewer frequency. For example, Google.com and Youtube.com websites are number 1 and 2 ranked websites in the world respectively. This was an interesting tool since it worked well with ranking international websites too. For example, if there was an e-commerce website in Brazil wanting to do a collaborate with us I would use the Alexa traffic rank to evaluate whether this supplier is worth our time. The lower the traffic rank the more people use their website in their respective country, so if a website had a rank of number 150 or less then it may be worth us sending them a free product for example.

4) The WeWork membership website

This is perhaps one of the most dynamic websites on this post. The WeWork membership website is almost like a social networking site between all WeWork members and companies. Having an office-sharing WeWork membership allows you to use all of the WeWork offices around the world for free. I was fascinated by the number of events and the workshops companies were doing for other members for free that were being displayed on the 'feed' of the website. For example, I gained social media algorithms knowledge from a free meet-up in the building with another company sharing their own processes with social media marketing.

The website had its own social media feed page where I used this to advertise a job for an advertising firm's help. It is possible to search for different marketing companies in the building you work in or the nearby WeWorks offices. After seeing a potential company, I used a facebook-like instant messaging tool to contact an employee for the company directly. The website and members' features are very good and make you feel supported in finding reliable professions to support you in whatever your company needs.

Screenshots of the new WeWork membership app that has the same features as their website

4) fiver.com

Fiver is a great way to search for freelance workers, to complete small and specific jobs instead of contacting an entire company for a small job using the WeWork membership website. This website was more cost-effective and time-efficient to contact a self-employed remote worker.

5) gleam.com

Gleam app/ website is a great way to create online competitions. I used social media to promote this online competition I made and sent them to my Gleam link. I commend Gleam for the user-friendly design in creating very professional competitions without having to spend too much time. I put an end date when the competition was to close and Gleam allowed me to pick a randomised winner, which I am sure the people who entered the competition appreciated.

Gleam screenshot of winners

6) Google mail merges

Google mail merges are useful in terms of marketing because it allows you to send emails to thousands of people in an automated fashion. I used the Google mail merges to promote sales on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and festive periods. I also used mail merges to contact former reviewers and influencers about potentially being available to promote our new product.

Mail merges seem quite abstract until you perform your first one successfully.

In a nutshell, allows you to send thousands of people personalized emails instead of sending thousands of people emails manually.

How to do a mail merge on Google for free

To perform a mail merge you will need a collection of emails and preferably their first names. One of the ways to do this is through a free product giveaway competition on gleam.com. This is the best way to get more people to enter if there is something to win for free. When creating the competition make sure the person needs to include at least their email and first name to enter. Luckily, the company I worked for already had a large database of previous customers' and previous partners' details that had been accumulated over years.

There are a few Google add-ons that you will need to get to make the mail merge work. This includes installing Gmail email templates and a mail merge add-on for Google sheets. After that, you are ready to experiment with templates that will be sent to your audience. You need to then test whether the mail merge works properly before mass sending this finalized template. This process may take a fair amount of time, however, the satisfaction of creating a successful mail merge is very satisfying. The emails will be sent automatically and you can watch as the computer does the hard work for you. The mail merge also shows the people who opened your email and the people who haven't, which is important in improving the process for next time. For example, maybe using a more eye-catching subject title for emails on the next mail merge will be better.