Internships—A Wedding Business Owner’s Best Path To Good Social Media

By Brian Lawrence, www.BrianLawrence.com, River Edge, N.J.Who in the wedding industry has 25 years of experience in social media? Nobody. Who are the most experienced and qualified people to help you with social media? Probably college students and young adults. They have grown up with the Internet and social media. It has become an intuitive process of their everyday life. For many wedding business owners, social media is an awkward burden. The learning process is burdened by the day-to-day challenges of running a business.Most college students need field experience to create an impressive resume in order to find the right position when graduating college. Many students love the allure of the wedding industry, and the field is on their career radar. As a wedding professional, you can impart valuable business and life lessons to these students through internships. The right intern for a wedding business should understand Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, as well as know how to manage a Wordpress blog. It would also be helpful if they can edit videos and work in Photoshop.Interns can also help your marketing efforts. They can work on online free or paid profiles on numerous wedding websites, help you cultivate reviews by contacting clients on your behalf, work on your online visibility by strengthening or establishing your profile on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, and many other directories and search engines. They can do networking outreach to other wedding businesses. Think about the big picture and the ideas you have wanted to implement but never found the time to do so. Be sure to make the experience worthwhile. Strive to ensure the work done is meaningful to your intern and beneficial to the growth of your business. Stay away from the temptation of assigning menial tasks.Finding an intern is easier than you think. You can search for students or post an opening for free on www.internships.com. Local colleges might have programs that give students college credits for interning. Compensation can range from non-paying to a flat monthly stipend or an hourly rate. Here are some questions you’ll want to ask when hiring an intern:1. What is your college major? Social media management requires high-level writing skills. If the student is not majoring in English, journalism, marketing, or PR, or does not have wedding-industry experience, she or he may not be able to communicate and engage at the level needed to represent your company.2. Can you show me some published and unedited writing samples? Everyone has a portfolio, but by the time things get published, editors and copy supervisors have changed things quite a bit grammatically and more. Don’t just look at published samples; more importantly, see the raw copy that was submitted to the publisher.3. What is your PR experience? Of course, setting up or managing events is a big plus in our industry. Ask to see press releases (unedited examples, of course). Delve into their experience in working with the media to get things published.4. What is your experience with graphic design? Find out graphics program capabilities and have him or her rate the skill level as competent, advanced, or expert. Then find out if he or she knows how to do it for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.5. What would you do to improve our current social media? Let the student analyze your current platforms and evaluate both their suggestions and the type of questions the candidate asks.6. What references do you have that can speak to the results of your efforts? Take the time to speak to their references besides emailing them and flush out truths you want to know.7. How many hours do you think this work requires? This is a key question when the social media job is part-time or outsourced. Someone who “practices” social media daily will be able to answer the question of how many hours must be allocated daily/weekly to accomplish everything you need done.Hiring the right intern can pay dividends way beyond the term of the internship. Here are some possible positive outcomes:• You can end up with an experienced, paid, part-time social media person for a long time to come.• You can have the gratification of making a difference in a student’s life, being a mentor, and being a trusted reference.• You’ll have a much easier time getting additional interns, and you can have the current intern train a new one before they leave.• You’ll have a brand ambassador who will enter a time in their lives where they can use you personally and recommend you to a lot of friends and associates (if you are proactive about staying in touch).During the internship process, be ready to be both a student and a teacher. Be positive, complimentary, and encouraging. Show appreciation by giving an extra bonus if it is deserved. And always make them feel important. ••