During my experience of internship in Shanghai, my work at the wedding company is about doing marketing on social media, such as writing posts in Facebook and managing the company’s account in Pinterest. I have some understanding of the social media types and examples from some famous companies, but I never learnt how to exactly create and manage social media. I got a chance to practice and learn skills from my manager, and she helped me a lot when I had some problems. In University, I have studied Marketing theories and principles from lecturer and tutors. Although those theories seem possible to fit on some companies’ marketing strategies, this is my first time to do actual marketing task. It is different than the work in University, because assignments are basically about the application of theories in a real life case. The success of marketing strategies is dependent on how many marketing theories people can apply into it. But I realized it might not work in the real world. Even if the theories can be applied in some companies, it cannot guarantee that the marketing strategy is suitable for those companies. In my opinion, practicing in a real world can help me know more about how to progress a marketing strategy.
During this internship, I have faced some challenges in my projects. At my first few days of work, my manager introduced and distributed me the daily work and background of the company. This company sells wedding gowns, bridesmaids and accessories. I was unfamiliar about the products and did not know the terms using for wedding products, such as asymmetrical to describe cutting of wedding gowns. When she told me to do the social media stuff such as writing posts for Facebook, I found it hard to start because I have never done it before and I was not sure about the format. So I checked and read the past work that my colleagues have done. I got some advice from my manager and these were really helpful. She also checked the stuff and might make some changes for me. I appreciated her help and I improved through each experience. I got used to doing the tasks after a week, and then my manager offered me some new tasks. They were different than the daily task of social media stuff, but I love to do that, as it was more challenging and I could design on my own.
I was told to do a inforgraphic and the topic is related to wedding, for example the wedding trend in 2014. I had created the content through research, and then discussed with the graphic designer about the layout. It was a challenge to create interesting content and present them clearly. I also realized that it is important to match the layout and make it easier for people to read it. My manager did teach me about these skills and I believe it will be useful for work in the future. During the month, I got experience about practicing some marketing skills and learned new skills from my manager. I am glad that my colleagues were friendly and helped me when I had difficulties. At work, I think I can learned something that was not taught in university. Those skills are useful because they can be applied into the real marketing environment. The theories studied in university might not suitable to apply in the marketing strategy but I think they can be a reference and I am still learning to fit them in some strategies. Anyway, I have earned a valuable experience through this internship.
