Molly Knapp CMAT 495: Internship Final Term Paper January 22, 2014 Communication Insights and Experiences

As a Salisbury University student I majored in Communications with a track in media studies and a minor in marketing management. I have taken a wide range of classes that have taught me a variety of different things to prepare me for a career. Participating in an internship this winter has been a great experience to apply what I have already learned and to improve on certain areas. I was a marketing and advertising intern at the Dashiell School of Dancing under supervision of the creative director and studio owner, Evelyn Paddy. Wally Dashiell opened Dashiell School of Dancing, located in Stevensville, MD, in 1948. In the summer of 2013, Mrs. Dashiell passed the studio on to one of her previous students, Evelyn. Evelyn runs the studio and teaches the majority of the classes along with another teacher, Amy Tedford. The studio offers classes for dancers as young as three all the way up to their adult stretch and strengthening class, so they cater to a wide range of ages. Considering the new ownership of the studio, Evelyn wanted to make several other changes to the studio. The biggest ones being that she wanted to make over the studio, increase their social media activity and create a website. My position as intern was strongly focused on updated their Facebook page and creating the website. Now at the end of my internship I can look back and reflect on my experience and everything that I learned and accomplished. I can safely say that it was an entirely positive adventure and I am extremely happy with my decision. There are a few specific things I learned

about communication during the course of my internship. I learned the importance of social media, I discovered the process and benefits of networking, successfully presenting your work to supervisors, and I learned the work that goes into running your own small business. I will discuss each lesson I learned, how it will help me in a future career, and how my college education prepared me for it. The first lesson I learned during my internship was the importance of social media and how to utilize it. Dashiell School of Dancing had a Facebook page created in April 2013 and that they updated about three to four times a month. This was one of the many changes implemented with the change of ownership and I knew Evelyn had a lot on her plate. We both agreed it would be one of my main projects to update the Facebook page so she made me an administrator for the page. This allowed me to post on behalf of the page, upload pictures and more. The day I became an administrator for the page it had 315 likes and I made a goal to increase the likes by 100 before the end of my internship. In Paula Morris advertising and promotions class we had a guest speaker to talk to us about social media. Carie Lewis is the deputy director of the online communications at The Humane Society and gave us several pointers. The biggest one I was able to apply was the importance of posting once a day. Ms. Lewis told us that posting too many times in one day can cause people to get annoyed and unlike the page but it is also important to try to post at least every other day to stay relevant. I really took this into consideration and made sure to post interesting and relevant information often. Sometimes I just posted something like Happy Snow Day! so that the page popped up on newsfeeds. Other times I would find an interesting article to share about dancing. I learned from class that you should switch up the content you share to appeal to more people and remain interesting with diversity.

Learning the importance of social media through my internship will be vital to the career I will have one day and has already proved that. I have been applying for different job postings and one in particular put my skills to the test. After I sent in my resume for a marketing management position they said they were interested in speaking with me further. They asked that I fill out a candidate qualification form and write a sample blog. Blogs are an essential part of social media and I was lucky to have had some experience with it. Writing a blog is not the same style of writing as a research paper but more casual. Making Facebook posts on behalf of a business definitely helped with the process. Also, when I was filing out the candidate qualification form, I had to answer a question about a marketing project I championed and I discussed my work on the Facebook page. I do consider my changes to the studio Facebook page a big reason to the increased traffic and likes. The process also taught me the different tools Facebook offers for a company page. You can see what posts did best, how many are talking about your company and see graphs that display the increase in likes over time. I also took advantage of the option to promote the page. With my supervisors approval, I paid $10 to promote the page with an advertisement on Facebook. I chose to target people in the surrounding towns and ages 15-65. I also entered keywords like ballet class, dance studio, and jazz so that people who searched these words would be targeted. Social media cannot only benefit small businesses and will be a beneficial skill in any career I end up having. This task was also an experience to apply what I had learned about demographics. The next lesson I learned was the process and benefits of networking. This came from my experience of working with a graphic designer Marshal Hartman. In the beginning of my internship I was attempting to create a flyer for the studio but found it really difficult to do

without the proper design programs. I realized I would not be able to do it without buying an expensive program and decided to reach out to someone. My sister gave me the contact information for her friend Marshal. I originally asked him if he could give me any advice on how to create a good flyer with what I was working with. Marshal offered to work with me directly to create new material for the studio. I told him that I did not have a budget that could afford to pay him or for the use of his designing programs. He said he would be happy to do it for free because he was an up and coming graphic designer and it was a way to get his name out there. We had several meetings and with his creative eye and help we came up with a whole new brand image for Dashiell School of Dancing. Throughout my college career I had been told a few times the importance of networking. In Ms. Bunchs business class she constantly stressed the importance of getting your name out there and knowing people that may one day help you secure a job. However, no one really walks you through the process of networking or tells you when you might need to. What really gave me the idea to reach out to a graphic designer was Dr. Morrisons internship orientation. She suggested that if we were struggling or needed help in other areas of expertise we could reach out to fellow interns. I wasnt sure if any of them were familiar with graphic design but it did give me the idea to look at other connections. It was a win-win work relationship for Marshal, Dashiell School of Dancing and myself. I spoke with Evelyn after I connected with Marshal and she was really pleased with the arrangement. We decided it would be a good idea to thank him on Facebook to show our gratitude and promote his new business. He recently started his own brand design company, Black Label. My new professional relationship taught me several things and the first one was that it is okay to ask for help. I wanted to create all the work myself but had to face that I wasnt

skilled in graphic design. If I wanted to present quality work to Evelyn, I knew I had to reach out. Another thing I learned is how to communicate professionally by staying in contact and also expressing your requirements for the project. My lesson in how to network and the effectiveness of doing so will be beneficial in my future career. It was a great experience to learn how to reach out to someone else and to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. It is vital for every professional to know how to do so. It is also just the beginning of my growing contacts that I can maybe one day use for a different work project. It also gave me some insight into the field of graphic designing. I know now how much work goes into creating graphics for a company and that it requires someone who specializes in it. I learned that it is not something I can easily learn and probably not something I would want do professionally. My new professional relationship with Marshal has already paid off and proved to be a success outside of my internship. At the completion of our work, Marshal approached me with an opportunity to work for his company, Black Label. He asked if I would work as project manager for the company on a contractual basis. Marshal said it would entail communication with his clients and relaying to him the work they wanted done. He said I would make a percentage of each sale. Marshal explained that it was an upcoming business and he wouldnt require a long-term commitment from me but thought it would be good experience for both of us. I agreed and will begin working with him soon! My networking for my internship resulted in an opportunity to gain experience within my field! During my internship I learned how to successfully present your work to supervisors. I had to keep Evelyn updated on my progress but I also had to share with others, specifically Wally Dashiell. Mrs. Dashiell still lives above the studio and likes to remain involved so she

would often like to see what I had been working on. This was sometimes intimidating because she was not afraid to critique something. I also would show Kim, the financial manager, and Amy, the other teacher, projects like the website and graphics. I knew from the beginning I would answer to Evelyn but didnt realize I would show my progress to others. In some ways my college experience prepared me for presenting work. Specifically my rhetoric and public presentation class Mrs. Trenary. This class taught me different ways to present but mostly contributed my confidence when I do present. Almost all of courses would have a presentation where I would present maybe a PowerPoint to my classmates. This was a little different because I would often have rubric to follow by and was familiar with presenting in a classroom. It is quite different presenting to people that you essentially work for. I do believe this will be beneficial to my future career because I am sure I will have meetings where I share with co-workers and supervisors any work that I complete. It affected the way I completed any work I did because I kept in mind the people that would be seeing it. I wanted to please not only my supervisor but also the other people who play a large role at the studio. One of the more shocking lessons I learned was all the work that goes into running a small, individually owned business. Evelyn runs the studio almost entirely by herself while also teaching classes, attending college, participating in a college dance company and more. I quickly learned that it takes a lot of dedication and sacrifices to run your own business. A lot of the things I learned from interning with Evelyn about running your own business, were not things that could be taught in school. One of the biggest challenges Evelyn faced was transitioning from the old owner to herself. Wally Dashiell is a beloved member of the community and there was a lot of pressure to live up to her position. I believe Evelyn

accomplished this by jumping in headfirst and making a name for herself as a studio owner, rather than trying replace Mrs. Dashiell. Another challenge of running your own business is maintaining several tasks at once. Evelyn has to keep up with memberships, finances, staff, and try to grow the business. As an intern, it was especially rewarding being able to take some of the responsibilities off her hands. Creating the website, updating social media, and helping around the studio gave me a taste of what it is like to be a business owner. Specifically creating the website was a huge hurdle for me as well as Evelyn. Neither of us had ever made one but thankfully I had some practice from working on my internship webfolio. Together we had to decide what was essential content to have on the website. We were also starting completely from scratch because the studio had never had a website before. Evelyn became the studio owner because of her expertise in dancing but it is clearly not all that goes into it. This taught me that although I majored in media studies and minored in marketing, I could end up having a job that requires many other skills from me. Many of the tasks Evelyn did on a daily basis she had to learn as she went. For example, she wasnt skilled in finances before she came into ownership but she now manages them successfully. This lesson will be useful to me in the future because I will be prepared to continuously cover unknown territory and learn to adapt. Another important lesson I learned about running a small business is that no task is to small for you. I knew when I signed my internship contract with Evelyn that I would sometimes be doing small tasks around the studio like cleaning and organizing. I didnt expect Evelyn to also be doing these small jobs but I soon realized there are not many other options. She couldnt splurge on a painting company to paint the office so it meant we spent several hours doing it.

Evelyn did not seem to mind doing manual labor because the studio is like a child to her and every little change contributes to its success. I envision this largely impacting my future as a working professional. I know now that sometimes there arent other people to do miscellaneous jobs for a company. I believe it will teach me to step up and do a job others may think they are above. I also have learned the satisfaction that comes from seeing a small change make a big difference. At the completion of my internship I can look back and see how useful and rewarding it was. I believe it has greatly influenced the type of career I am interested in. Before my internship I had a vague idea that I wanted to go into something to do with public relations or advertising. Now I know I want to look for a career that focuses on social media and other marketing tools. I realized I enjoy utilizing tools like Facebook and seeing the results. I also think I would like to work for a company that helps small businesses grow by giving them the necessary marketing tools. Interning for an individually owned small business showcases to you any growth they make, big or small. It is really rewarding to see steps you make or tasks you complete, affect a business. My internship at The Dashiell School of Dancing was a wonderful opportunity that enhanced my knowledge from my college courses but also enhanced myself as an individual. I have grown more confident in my ability to complete any professional task successfully. It has taught me that I am creative and can be an asset to a company. A lot of my internship projects involved starting something from scratch because of the change in ownership. From creating a website to creating a new brand image, I learned how to turn nothing into something. I also learned how to take failure and turn into something awesome. I felt defeated when I couldnt design a flyer on my own but it resulted in a new professional contact.

Every day of my internship was a positive one in some way or another. It was such a pleasure working with my supervisor Evelyn and learning from her. She included me on every aspect of her business and allowed me a great deal of responsibility. I am extremely grateful that she took on the task of being my supervisor considering her already full plate. I didnt expect to end my internship with a new career prospect but I now have one with Marshal from Black Label. While this was not always an easy experience, it was definitely a rewarding one. I feel even more prepared and excited to start a career within my field.