Internship Diary #11 — Discipline is Harder When Things are Easier

A few weeks ago, I traveled home for Thanksgiving break. Like most college students, I was looking forward to using the time to rest and catch up on a few things that had fallen through the cracks at school while I was busy. A day before making the trek home, I messaged back and forth on Slack with Kevin, just discussing a few upcoming meetings, ways for me to get more experience, and how I could get a couple things done on the road. In truth, my mind was mainly focused on spending a week with no assignments due for any classes. 

Over the course of the break, though, I noticed something. For some reason, despite the fact that my schedule was wide open for the week, it was more difficult for me to execute little tasks for my internship. At school, I juggle a lot of responsibilities and a decently busy schedule. But I get everything done at roughly the same time every day, and usually at the same place. Classes end, lunch is over, I land at my desk in my room to hammer out internship work. Not so at home, away from the busyness. For me, and I suspect for a lot of people, discipline is harder when things are easier. 

I live in south Georgia, near-ish to Savannah, in a tiny little nothing town that no one has ever heard of. From Jackson, the drive home takes about nine hours. I love to drive — always have, ever since I got my learner’s permit. There’s somewhat of a running joke in the family about how I never give up the wheel to let anyone else drive, no matter how long the trip. That’s neither here nor there, except that I again insisted on driving home for break despite having several pressing bits of work to do. So, at a gas station next to a coffee shop somewhere near Murfreesboro, while my brother and sister were getting coffee, I pulled out my laptop in the parked car and posted several clips for the Content Machine. I’d been putting it off, wanting to retain control of the driver’s seat (and the aux). It took me no more than 10 minutes.

That’s how things tend to go for me. I imagine a problem — for instance, I want to drive but I also have a little work to do — and then stew on it until I have no motivation to do the thing I need to do. In truth, getting work or homework or chores or whatever done is usually not that difficult. But, for me, it requires creating discipline during times of ease, breaks, and comfort. It’s easy to have a strong work ethic while I’m busy. After all, I’ve already got a lot to do, what’s one more thing? When I’m on break or have a lull in responsibilities, though, all of my mole hill tasks turn into mountain-sized tasks. 

I’m not saying I’m going to start getting up at 5 a.m. on Saturdays or working through all my breaks. I believe strongly in letting down time be down time. The ebb and flow of days and weeks, though, will naturally include both the hectic and the easy. I just don’t want to get lazy when the easy days come.

Internship Diary #10 — Little Crumbs of Payoff as I Get Better

A few weeks ago in this ongoing diary of my internship experience, I talked about a valuable piece of advice I received from my writing professor: “Say yes to every writing opportunity.” Part of my takeaway from that lesson was that, despite the fact that he meant it very literally, the actionable piece for me was to simply write any kind of thing until I became comfortable with it. Obviously, as a college student, a lot of the legwork in that department is done for me. My classes often present me with assignments in areas of writing I’ve never done before. Last year, for my major, I was required to take a Public Relations Writing course. This is not a genre of writing that especially interests me (I’m not convinced that it especially interests anyone), but the experience made me better. What’s more, my newfound comfort with PR writing landed me a few small-time freelance gigs. These were never much at a time, but $50 is $50. Seeing skills translate into money in real time is nice. As anyone who has any sort of semi-specialized skill knows, once other people find out about it, you become that guy in every group you’re part of. My brother, for instance, is “the video guy.” I’m the writing guy. 

These steps in our development produce little crumbs of payoff, even from the outset. After learning how to do PR writing, opportunities for it seemed to be everywhere. My fraternity was conducting a fundraiser, and since I was the writing guy, I wrote the fundraising letter. So on and so forth the process of learning and then doing continued. 

Another little crumb of payoff arrived last week. A non-profit organization that works with Adelsberger asked for a series of fundraising letters to be written on their behalf. Kevin saw fit to let me take the reins on the project and write each letter. If you’re anything like me, you know what it feels like to be asked to do something you’re sort of good at, only now in a higher-stakes setting. All of my fundraising and public relations writing to this experience had been low key. Fraternity brothers are not exactly the New York Times editorial board when it comes to critiquing my work. Now, I won’t pretend writing a letter asking for money is rocket science. Obviously, it’s pretty straightforward. I’m prone to anxiety, though, and there’s nothing more anxiety-inducing than staring at a blank document without a clue if anything you write on it will be correct. I believe this is called overthinking. The point is, my anxiety was quieted, at least a little, by the knowledge that at least this wasn’t entirely foreign. The stakes were raised, but the ground was familiar. 

I wrote the letters. I had plenty of questions to ask, and as usual, Brittany was kind and helpful in answering them. And I checked another box off, another opportunity said yes to, another skill at least a little more developed. 

Internship Diary #6 – Learning the Language, Raising My Cultural Capital

There’s a concept in sociology called Cultural Capital. Now I’m no Sociologist, so don’t go quoting me on this, but essentially this idea refers to our ability to understand the slang, the jargon, and the little signifiers that say we belong in a place or group. All these things operate as a form of social currency: they purchase credibility.

As the new guy in any place, your cultural capital is almost inherently going to be low. You’re the new guy. This has nothing to do with the kindness of the people who came before you, or even how welcoming they are. It’s just a fact — you don’t know the landscape yet. There’s not a lot of capital in your cultural bank account. It takes time and effort and knowledge to fit into this new environment.

In this sense, adjusting to a new place — whether you’ve moved places of residence, or you’ve started attending a new church, or you’ve joined a new company — is a lot like learning a new language. For instance, when I began my internship with Adelsberger Marketing, I was bewildered by the jargon used in conversation or on Slack.

“You’re managing the Content Machine.” Ok, what is the Content Machine?

“We have a shoot for Leaders next week.” I’ll bite, who or what is Leaders?

“That’s like Alex and Taylor Swift.” I know what all of those words mean by themselves, but I have no clue how they’re connected.

Overtime, and especially as I was taught my new responsibilities, the team at Adelsberger explained all these terms to me. They began teaching me the language.

Unfortunately for me, I have never been good at language learning. It’s my academic Achilles heel. I took Latin for two years in high school — not my choice, please don’t judge — and all I remember is the word “Oremus,” because I would say it as a joke before my family prayed at dinner. (Oremus means “Let us pray.”) I am in college now and taking my second semester of Spanish. Sadly, my language aptitude has not improved. Despite my love for words and writing, I have simply never been able to grasp the grammar, the syntax, or the intricacies of language that a truly fluent person understands intuitively. In my defense, I would tell you that I love words, not grammar. They’re different. I write for the meaning, not the commas.

But as I’m sure you’ve heard, the best way to learn a language is not a class, or a textbook, or a test. You learn by speaking, the same way a child does. You learn by immersion. For instance, anyone at Adelsberger Marketing will tell you that understanding Alex Russell, whether his quirks, his intricacies, or his relationship to Taylor Swift, is not a simple exercise. There’s certainly no textbook. You have to be immersed in the culture of Alex.

Over the past two months, give or take, I’ve gotten a crash course in the language of Adelsberger Marketing. I’m not fluent yet, but I’m conversational, which is a vast improvement. Immersion, simply diving in, has paid off. Hopefully it’s put a few more dollars worth of capital in my cultural bank account, too.

Internship Diary #5: Growing As a Creative by Saying Yes to Everything

“Never, ever turn down a writing opportunity. Say yes to everything.” My journalism professor told me that last year as I sat in his office debating whether to accept an offer for freelance work. The job was simple, just writing a few press releases for a mayoral candidate. Still, I was busy and taking the title of “Writer” from theoretical to the professional world was intimidating. I recognize the contradiction in that: the whole reason you study something in college is to do it professionally. New horizons are scary, though.

Interning with Adelsberger Marketing represented another new horizon. Yes, I’ve written a lot, but there’s a marked difference between writing for an assignment and writing something that goes up on a company website. I’d never written a blog post before, or helped with scripting a promotional video, or done marketing writing in any capacity. But, “say yes to everything.”

As a part of this role, I’ve said yes to every form of writing I listed above. I did not understand what I was doing, and there are parts I still don’t understand, and I’m sure next week there will be more, new parts I also don’t understand. That’s the whole reason behind saying yes, though: you get confused, you ask questions, you try again, you get better. Rinse, repeat.

At the beginning of my internship, I was told that one of my responsibilities would be helping to write blog content for certain clients. Brittany Crockett, writer and content creator for Adelsberger Marketing, would be the lead on these projects. She reached out to me quickly and kindly to offer resources, examples of work, and easy projects just to get my feet wet. I ran into problems almost immediately, though — the prompts confused me, as I didn’t have a lens for understanding what the client wanted simply because of my own inexperience. Frustrated and a little embarrassed by my own incompetence, I reached out to Brittany. She graciously agreed to meet with me via Zoom to answer my many questions.

Over the course of that call, Brittany patiently answered questions, including not only the ones I asked but the ones I didn’t even know I needed to ask.

You see, I don’t think saying yes to everything is as simple as it sounds. The prescription is not as simple as “become a workaholic in order to get better.” It is, however, about stepping out a little further into roles you’ve never filled before. And asking a million (probably annoying) questions when it turns out you don’t know what you’re doing.

Asking questions, getting answers, and doing a new thing. And then finding another new thing to do next.

So, I’ll make one small amendment to the adage my professor gave me: Say yes to everything, until you understand how to do everything you need to do, plus maybe a few other things for good measure.

Website Content – Where Do You Start?

Brainstorming Session

We’ve said it before – websites are no longer an optional part of a business. They give you the unique opportunity to present information to your customers and potential customers when they research and compare you to your competitors. Without stellar content, the time your potential customers spend on your website could be a waste.

Creating awesome website content is a process that starts with a good plan. Whether you are creating a new website or updating an existing website, you should complete an evaluation of your organization before digging in and composing your content. Each time we meet with a potential new client, and even when we recently updated our own website, we start with these five questions.

Recently, we worked with ASPELL Recovery Center here in West Tennessee and began with this same process to find out what information was crucial to include on their new website. We also have a number of other new websites in development, so keep an eye out for those launching in the coming months.

Do you know your organization?

  • What is your company’s history? To clearly communicate who you are to others, you need to know who you are. Spend time with your management teams and employees talking about your past, present, and future as an organization.
  • Do you have a Mission or Vision Statement? If you do have one, make sure these statements identify who you are as a company. If you do not have one, consider crafting one before launching or relaunching your site.

What makes your organization unique?

  • What do you do, that others don’t? Why would you be chosen over your competitors?
  • There is always something that makes us unique from others. It is essential to identify that in order to show your customers why your business is the better choice. Once you know this aspect of your company, you are ready to tell the world!

Who are your competitors?

  • Name your top competitors – those whom you compete directly with for business on a daily basis.
  • Competition drives us to be better. Knowing your competition helps you better determine your strengths and weaknesses. You are also better prepared to make your company stand out, instead of blending into what everyone else is doing.

Who are your customers?

  • Is it a busy, working mom? A retired couple? A College student?
  • By knowing who your customers are, you can clearly understand and communicate what you do to make their lives better. That message needs to be conveyed immediately. Don’t make your customers search for what you do!

What is the goal of the website?

  • What do you want your customer to do?
  • Make sure to develop a clear Call to Action (CTA). People need to know what you want them to do on your website. Do you want them to buy something? Do you want them to schedule an appointment? Make it clear and make the buttons easy to find and click.

Anyone can put up a website, but one with carefully planned out content that is relevant to your industry, up-to-date, and easy to navigate is a different story. Taking the time to do this will always have you a step ahead of the competition. By spending time on quality content, your website will be at the top of search pages without spending extra advertising dollars.

Ready to conquer a new website but need additional guidance? Make sure to download a copy of our Digital Marketing Checklist and then schedule a meeting with one of our experts here at Adelsberger Marketing. That’s what we are here for. Click below and we’ll get started.

Email Us

 

Is This the Best Example of Branded Content?

Jack Ryan

Not a clickbait title. I think this might really be the best example of sponsored content I have seen. Amazon Prime Partnered with Vice News to do a series of videos promoting the new Jack Ryan series. My favorite of the series is entitled: Cheated Death with a Former CIA Operative – Inspired by Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.

In this video, Vice News does it what it does best- tells stories in a real and gritty way through the video. They tell the life story of a former CIA Operative, Nic McKinley. I imagine their target audience for this campaign is men who like action, military, and adventure movies. So hearing from a CIA operative is a great way to catch their attention.

This video has a lot going for it:
1. Great production value. It has good quality and a variety of shots to help keep the viewer engaged.
2. It’s not overwhelming in its promotion of Jack Ryan. A few brief mentions but is very much about Nic McKinley.
3. Thrilling Stories. Nic does a great job sharing exciting stories from his career.
4. Behind the Scenes: Nic talks about his life as CIA and the bad side of his life as a CIA Operative.
4. The pivot. Near the end of the video, VICE News turns the story to talk about Nic’s current life in which he is fighting human trafficking.

The pivot at the end is what sealed the deal for me. Amazon allowed VICE to create a promotional piece that stayed true to who they were AND help promote a great mission that Nic is running in his post-CIA life. You can watch the piece below, let me know what you think about the brand integration: