My name is Justin Kocher and I’ve recently started a marketing and media internship with Joel Hall Dancers & Center at the beginning of the Fall 2020 semester. For 46+ years, Joel Hall has established a black-led non-profit organization that has focused on being an inclusive and diverse art incubation center, offering a variety of dance classes for different skill levels. As their marketing intern, it’s my job to help them celebrate their rich jazz history, sharing Joel’s story via social media outlets, video editing, and digital marketing campaigns. Most days I’ll be perched up at my computer at home, editing historic footage from previous decades for future livestreams and digital content. Currently, we’re working on fundraising for our new space in Albany Park, “The Hall” , the majority of our efforts being offered digitally. It’s a unique experience- coming up with new strategies to accommodate the new consumer behaviors that were brought with Covid-19.

With the pandemic in full swing, JHDC found an opportunity to really build their brand presence online, which gave me the chance to work on building media branded material; this meant clarifying language, colors, fonts, shapes, and animations. All of these smaller parts had to reflect the image of the JHD rebrand. All JHD admin meetings are held online, but it didn’t stop our community from communicating and collaborating (thanks Zoom)! Typically, a marketing & media intern at JHD would be creating marketing materials centered around physical events, shows, and fundraising efforts. Instead, my work is centralized around building virtual engagement to keep the dance studio fresh and present in everyone’s minds. This meant I still had the chance to create new avenues to engage the Chicago dance community, but in the virtual realm. Now, as a digital media intern, we are learning how to emulate those same experiences in a virtual world. Just as an example, I’m currently working on building a virtual showcase of Joel Hall’s past performances, Nightwalker & Anja the Unexpected. To keep the show interesting, I am currently building slides and animations for the beginning, intermission, and closing notes so the audience has a more engaging and interactive experience during the show.

All in all, I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity. I’m so happy that I can help celebrate a black-led local non-profit that has been established for 46+ years, and keep producing new and fresh content for them. I’m so proud to have the opportunity and responsibility to preserve black jazz history solely through the medium of digital marketing: gaining experience with social media management, brand identity, virtual events, and long-form content. This experience serves as a great example as to why I chose to major in digital marketing; I get to work alongside these fantastic local Chicago organizations and celebrate the features that make them so unique and special.

JHDC Show Intermission Example:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PXAhMe8TU6hZFhtQIaEuFULoNF4QMVGh/view?usp=sharing

Being an intern in a business incubator is a completely different experience to me, when your customers are startups in many stages. 1871 is the flag ship project of The Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC), a non-profit organization that supports entrepreneurs on their path to building high-growth, sustainable businesses that serve as platforms for economic development and civic leadership. Their purpose is to create the experiences and space that founders need while they build extraordinary businesses. There are almost 50 employees at 1871, with a dozen of interns at multiple departments. They are all managed by Betsy Ziegler, who is the first woman CEO of Chicago tech incubator.

As a Research and Analytics Intern, my tasks are currently focusing on measuring conversions of user activities on 1871 website. Since COVID-19, the rate of user engagement has decreased. Therefore, tracking how users interact with the website, what sources lead them to the website, the number of new/ returning users are significantly important. The softwares that I use are Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google sheets. In addition, other platforms such as Hubspot, PeopleVine, Slack and Google Meet are utilized to increase the effectiveness of work and communication.

Although this is a virtual internship, I still enjoy my experience at 1871 because of the support and interaction in the Marketing team as well as among employees at the company. My manager, Jenna, who is the Director of Marketing is flexible and supportive. I have a 30 minute meeting with her and another 30 minute meeting with all Marketing members every day. Once every two weeks, all interns at 1871 have a virtual lunch meeting or happy hours. We share our experiences and get to know others’ tasks and departments. What I like the most from working here is there are tremendous events and workshops hosted by 1871 that I can attend for free. Many of them are about Marketing, Branding and Data Analytics; which are the topics I’m passionate about.

This photo was from a Virtual Intern Team Lunch.

Overall, being a marketing intern at a business incubator is a new challenging but rewarding experience. I have become more confident and prepared for the journey ahead.

As a Marketing Intern at Lynn Hazan & Associates, I have completed a variety of duties. Due to LH&A being a small firm, less than ten people, it is critical interns have proficient knowledge of computer programs and learn new skills quickly because no one intern specializes in a specific area. While interns may be more advanced in certain areas compared to others, all interns will complete priority assignments.

            In the morning, the team has a phone call or Skype meeting to discuss what’s new and what needs to completed. Once the morning brief concludes, and information is shared, interns are assigned tasks by the President of the firm. Intern tasks are dependent on where the firm is in the recruitment process for a position. For example, when the firm obtains a new job to recruit for, all interns search for places to promote the opening and reach potential candidates. Upon this task’s completion, which could take days, interns will then search for potential candidates to fill the position. Teamwork is a critical component of our success, which is why we must be expert communicators. Constant communication ensures there is no overlap in the work we complete. When a potential candidate gets discovered, we reach out with a letter of inquiry, so we must verify with one another the status of the potential candidate. We do not want to message the same person more than once since it could result in rejection due to spam. Once the potential candidate is interviewed and accepts an offer, which could take weeks, the LH&A website is updated to reflect the fill.

            While the overview above is broad, there are much smaller intricacies that interns must perform to be successful. For example, coming into this internship, I was unfamiliar with web design and content creation. However, job promotions and advertisements taught me how to expand my skills. Visuals are significant to the success of a job promotion. It is what catches the eye of a job seeker. Due to the threat of copyright laws and lawsuits, I could not simply take an image from Google; instead, I had to find a free visual or create my own. Mind you some interns were undoubtedly more experienced than me in this aspect of marketing, but at LH&A, it is a core value that we all learn. Therefore, even though I lacked the content creation experience, I was assigned this duty until I became adept.

            Learning new hard skills has been fulfilling, but learning new soft skills, like how to be a strong leader, has been more rewarding. Since I was the first intern to join LH&A this summer, I have slightly more knowledge of the firm and industry compared to the other interns. Because of this, when our President’s time is limited and more assistance is needed, interns contact me to ask questions and walk them through their tasks. Before they officially joined the team, I had already completed the assignments they were doing for the first time. So, I was able to assist them adequately. This experience has taught me how to be patient, available, and confidant.

            Overall, this experience has been a learning one. With no previous marketing experience, I have not been able to utilize the marketing skills I learned at DePaul in the professional working world until I took this internship opportunity. My writing and communication skills have improved, along with my critical thinking skills, content creation skills, leadership skills, and market research skills.

Katherine Way starts their day like many other offices around the country, at 9am. I arrived at a small office in a business park in Jacksonville Florida. We are a small company with only 5 or 6 people on the average day, so we still come into the office when we can during this time. I start by walking through the office to the warehouse where my desk is set up and check my email. My title is just Intern so I help with anything and everything they need and most days I help with shipping by printing invoices, collecting and packaging clothing for shipment, and updating inventory. After that I go and check our social media, which include Instagram and Facebook, and also create posts for both for our special promotions. Also we like to keep up by posting daily content about the company and our beach boutique. Right now we are getting ready to launch new fall colors and styles for our clothes so we need to have photoshoot days, I help out with organizing and pulling clothing and also making sure the clothes are clean and steamed. The upkeep of the clothes is very important for the presentation which affects our campaigns and content creation.

I feel I have learned a lot so far this summer, I now understand the logistics behind shipping and how it affects the customer experience. Also the creative side and how we come up with new ideas to grab people attention and present our clothing in a different way. Also how to then track the customer interaction with our email campaigns and social media posts, then using this information to better advertise and sell our product. There are many different platforms that we track the customer experience along with keeping our information organized in the same place. I have learned a lot about Shopify, which we use to run the website, also Klaviyo to create and track emails we send out. I am excited for the rest of my summer with this company and being included in sales meetings and more projects.

The office celebrating my 21st birthday with prosecco and cupcakes during one of our photo shoots.

Setting up web and social shot, also helping out by wearing the clothes and posing for shot on the web

“Wow!” is all I can say as my 2020 Summer Internship with PepsiCo is coming to an end. Given the current circumstances with COVID-19, this year was the first year in which PepsiCo shifted their internship program to be entirely online. Regardless of this fact, they knocked it out of the park and ensured each intern had a fun and engaging learning experience during the program.

While there were over 950 interns this year, with roughly 2/3 being in sales and supply chain, I was one of only 3 interns whose function/title was “Category Management and Insights Intern”. PepsiCo is a massive company with over 260,000 employees and dozens of different brands, 20 of them generating at least 1 billion dollars in revenue annually. Out of these many brands, I was assigned to the Quaker branch who is headquartered at the “Plaza” in Chicago. Given all of this, prior to the internship I was worried it would be difficult to network and learn more about the company and its culture while working remotely. Not only was I wrong, but I was able to meet a ton of amazing people and learn about nearly every brand that PepsiCo has! I learned that PepsiCo has an immersive culture that allows people to feel comfortable and voice their opinions. The many employee resource groups they offer interns to attend internal and external company events (in this case zoom events) where there were different games, discussions, and breakouts for the interns and employees to enjoy and learn from.

As for the day to day, the recruiters were not kidding when they said, “no two days are the same”. The program was broken down into 3 main parts: Functional work, Cross-functional work, and PEP-U Degreed Learning. The Functional work was where the highest priority was placed, this was where I would support the Quaker business by analyzing data and creating Sell-in stories to help drive revenue and grow shelving space. I was assisted by mentors and my direct manager in learning on how to pull and analyze data, as well as key insights for making an impactful story for the customer. Everybody was incredibly helpful, and questions were encouraged. My recommendations were given to real customers and I was able to make a real impact for the company. The Cross-functional work was entirely new for the internship program and was added this year. I was placed on a team with 5 other interns from different functions and assigned to a project to work on which allowed me to work with brands such as Mountain Dew and Doritos. Finally, Pep-U Degreed learning was an online source for taking courses and learning more about PepsiCo and how to “crush expectations”. There were many useful insights and courses that allowed us interns to choose skills to improve on and grow overall.

Ultimately, I highly recommend interning with PepsiCo! I have learned so much and have met so many incredible people even though it was virtual. The learning opportunities provided by PepsiCo are endless and there are surefire connections that will last a lifetime. Thank you, PepsiCo!

My role as the VP of Marketing for the DAB has expanded considerably in the wake of this global pandemic. In a non-digital quarter, the DePaul Activities Board will host between 20 and 30 events on campus. My role required me to promote these events through social media, email blasts, and direct marketing. I managed a discretionary budget for printed and promotional items, and I managed a team of designers to create them. Our organization is present at involvement fairs and orientations and is known for our large-scale events and concerts. We have around 25 members, but we serve the entire DePaul community. When the university went completely digital DAB’s plans changed, and so did my job. Our team of graphic artists was reduced, several members of leadership left, our calendar became limited, and everything had to go digital. I began to fill holes where I could. I became the host and sole planner of a weekly trivia series; I instigated multiple social media campaigns and contests; I completed a portion of our graphic design needs.

In this internship, I have learned how to adapt. Every week provides a new challenge that we are looking to overcome. Right now, we are beginning the organizational planning process for the coming school year. All signs are indicating that any programming we do in the future will have to be severely limited. Our challenge is figuring out how the events can adapt to either be conscious of social distancing or take place online. I have also learned that regardless of the virus, the realm of digital marketing is shifting. The consumer audience is changing, and with that the platforms for marketing are changing with them. I have learned that managing a TikTok page and a Spotify account can be as effective as any email list. In the world of marketing, it is important to recognize these shifts and build a toolkit to execute conscious change.

Being a marketing intern for a team out of Baird & Warner has been an awesome experience. I started before the quarantine and adapting to that has been challenging although very educating. A lot of work and material and just life in general is trending to being as digital and virtual as possible. Majoring in digital marketing made that transition easier due to the trend of things moving digitally before the virus. As a marketing intern, there are several tasks that I am in charge of. There are the traditional marketing aspects such as ordering brochures, flyers, postcards, open house, and for sale signs. With digital marketing I run social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Also, the website, smart CRM, Zillow, other listing sites and the monthly newsletter.

The thing with working in real estate is that many days are very different. For example, this week I have to prepare a Digital Open House. This is something fairly new to the Real Estate world and is in response to COVID-19. There are several steps that go into creating the event and then getting people to actually attend. The way these events are being hosted is through facebook and creating an events page. You will set the page up with all the necessary information such as what, when, and where. Once the facebook event is set up, there are several ways to spread the message. First, is going into the listing service and set an open house on the specific property. Once this is done, you can promote on social media. We have attached graphics to the event and shared it on all social media as organic posts, on stories and as a boosted ad. Another way we get the message out is with our newsletter. Knowing that we had this event coming up, we included it in our newsletter so people from out CRM system could RSVP. The final thing we do is send an email to all the local agents in the area asking if they have a potential buyer that would like to check this property out.

Working in real estate, it is important to remember no two days are really the same. One day can be spent getting an open house ready while the other is getting the newsletter together. This can take time to incorporate the links necessary for the open house or other digital tools. For example, over quarantine one thing we had to do was convert all of our physical brochures to digital versions so we could still share with clients and potential buys. While another day can be used to create graphics for social media including; just sold, open houses, testimonials, tips and other content. The content is to promote the agent and the listings.