Since its humble beginnings in the 1990s, social media has hit the world by storm, growing from a modest means of communicating with friends into world-wide platforms for catching up on news, events, and more. Perhaps most interestingly, social media has also become an exceptionally powerful advertising tool for businesses:
- 89% of marketers use Facebook in their brand marketing efforts
- 90% of Instagram users (1 billion active monthly) follow a business on the platform
- 45% of marketers have gained customers through LinkedIn.
- 73% of businesses believe that social media marketing has been “somewhat” or “very” effective
So it’s probably safe to say that businesses need to ensure they invest in their social media efforts in order to succeed! Unfortunately, with the multitude of other tasks that business workforces find themselves constrained to, social media efforts often fall to the wayside.
One of the ways that businesses are effectively combating this, however, is through digital marketing internships - with many of these internships taking place online. Read on to find out the five reasons why you should hire an intern for your social media campaigns, too…
1. Today’s interns are the most social-media savvy
The majority of today’s online interns are studying an undergraduate degree at university. And, at the time of writing this blog, these students fall into the Generation Z category. According to the Institute of Business Management, more than 74% of Gen Z spend their free time online - even as much as 10.6 hours a day! Roughly two hours and 55 minutes of this time is spent on social media, which is almost an hour longer than the average Millennial. Even before we piece all these statistics together, it’s clear to see that today’s interns are highly sophisticated social media users, and are therefore the natural choice to work on your social media campaigns.
2. Interns have access to the latest knowledge and developments in social media
As noted above, the majority of interns are studying their university degree; many students go into marketing roles following the completion of a degree in a multitude of different areas; from psychology to media studies and english literature all the way to public services. As such, these interns will be learning from lecturers who are conducting current research and studies in this field, and may have access to information that other employees might not. Hiring an intern for the development and growth of social media campaigns is therefore likely to be particularly beneficial, as these interns will have an abundance of new techniques to bring to their projects. This is especially true of online interns, as they will have instant access to their study materials while working from home or their student accommodation.
3. Today’s interns are social media marketing-aware
Today’s interns, as frequent recipients, consumers and targets of social media marketing, are acutely aware of the current methods being used, and are therefore a helpful source of knowledge for social media campaigns. What’s more, today’s interns are thought to be the most creative of all generations - particularly when it comes to social media. They take inspiration from everywhere around them, and spend more of their free time than other generations engaging in creative hobbies. Creativity is one of the most important aspects of social media marketing success, so by implementing digital marketing internships in your business, you’ll be harnessing this to the max. In a similar vein...
4. Interns are eager to impress
As well as being the most creative, today’s interns are also highly career-motivated. According to LinkedIn, nearly 25% of Gen Z university students start their job search before their junior year. As a result, today’s interns are highly motivated, hard-working, and eager to please, making them a highly valuable asset to businesses. In terms of social media campaigns, this means that they are likely to really take their time to create good-quality campaigns that will achieve results!
5) Interns can work on campaigns around their university timetable
As mentioned above, due to significant time constraints, many businesses do not take the real time needed to invest in their social media campaigns. Although there is no prescriptive amount of time that businesses should be spending on this, it goes without saying that the more time you have to work on and refine your campaigns, the higher their quality will be, and therefore, the greater the impact they will have. Digital marketing internships offer the perfect opportunity for this; interns will spend on average around ten hours at university lectures and classes a week, meaning that (aside from their coursework load), they have plenty of time to focus on business’ social media campaigns. This is especially true of those taking part in online internships, as they will not lose any time travelling to and from the company office, and they can access work around the clock, rather than during the traditional 9-to-5 working day.
In conclusion…
Hiring an intern is a fantastic solution to boosting your social media campaigns! However, as social media is a digital project that needs to be managed digitally, the real benefits come from hiring these interns online.
For starters, your social media campaigns need to run for twelve months of the year, and (unlike physical internships), online internships give you scope to work on this all year around, instead of just in the summer.
Online internships also allow you to quickly and easily monitor the progress of multiple interns, and because they will be working remotely, business managers will only need to engage with them on a part-time basis, rather than full time. What’s more, if you have multiple interns working part time with a focus on their individual skills - such as design, content, or SEO - productivity will increase significantly without any additional time constraints on managers, which is particularly handy for SMEs. Additionally, with interns working remotely, this saves on office space, and negates the need to reimburse any travel fares, too!
Whether you’re an established business needing an extra pair of hands or a startup needing to get your business off the ground, ProjectSet can provide you with the perfect interns to sky-rocket your social media campaigns. If you’d like to see how it’s done, sign up for your free demo with us today.
