Issue with jobbridge placement

Uncle_moe

Hi,

I recently got an internship on the jobbridge scheme as a social media administrator, however, I have done absolutely nothing since beginning. I mean nothing, I just sit at my computer all day browsing the internet. The bosses don't give me anything to do at all. Anyone got any advice on how I ask nicely what the purpose of this placement is supposed to be?
I can't just sit here for the next 6 months doing nothing, yeah I could put stuff on my CV and say I was doing loads of work but the problem is in the meantime I'll go nuts.

xgwishyx

Are there other Social Media admins there that you could ask for guidence? If not, why not start monitoring the web and building reports on your companies online persona, and present them to your manager with your own thoughts on how to progress. He/She will see that you're eager and interested, and they'll be more inclined to give you full time work at a later date.

Uncle_moe

There are no other social media people here but you're idea is a good one thanks. One thing I'm finding a bit annoying though is the lack of support. I don't need someone to hold my hand but I figured I'd have been learning stuff here. For me to come up with ideas is all well and good but it would be nice to get a bit of guidance too, i figured that was part of an internship.

Mrs OBumble

Set up a meetng with the manager and ask him/her!

Say things like:

"what do you want me to achieve this week, and this month and over the 9 months?"

"what PR and social media has the company done before now, who can I talk to about that, can you introduce me please?

"Are there any accounts I shoudl be monitoring?

"who should I be consulting and getting approval from for any social media things i propose setting up?"


Take notes about the answers

It's poor form of the boss not to have set this up, but really there's no harm in you taking some initiative.

listermint

Set up some google alerts on your company, setup alerts on your companies closest and not so close rivils.

Research other industries relevant to the markets you are in / you supply / supply you.

Examine their external social interactions on all platforms, and come up with ideas on how to combine these into something that could improve your workplaces interactions external to the public.

Uncle_moe

sorry i should have also said that the company is a web agency so they told me in the interview that I'd be helping on campaigns for clients and stuff but from what i can see so far there are no clients. Well there are some but the company I'm with just develops websites for them. It seems like they want to branch out into social media marketing but dont really know how.

srsly78

OP this is real work and real work experience. Social media coordinator is supposed to sit on facebook all day! A very serious responsibility.

Do they not have you posting spam anywhere?

xgwishyx

In that case I suggest taking Mrs OBumble's advice and set up a meeting with the manager. Ask him if you can sit in on some development meetings with the clients if possible so you get a feel for what they are looking at.

You could start work on graphics for existing clients based on the website designs as well, or comparing their companies with others in the industry to report on the language and tone that they should use, and on which channels (facebook, twitter, boards etc).

Uncle_moe

thanks a million for all the replies, some really good advice too. I've kinda just taken it on myself to look at social media marketing campaigns that worked well for other companies and hopefully when the time comes i'll at least be able to show that I've been some way productive and have some ideas that might be able to be implemented. I just get the slight feeling that they're not bothered at all about what I do

AerynSun

I'd agree with the advice you've already heard: speak to your manager/supervisor. An internship is supposed to involve an element of learning, and while you could set your own learning objectives, you really do need to go over them with the person who'll be responsible for signing off on your work at the end of the placement. You wouldn't want to leave it, and get to the end of the placement and only then discover that the manager had a whole list of expectations that they never told you about, and then they give you a poor performance rating.

For yourself, make a list of what your questions are, write them down and then ask for a meeting with your manager to go through them and get clear direction. Some managers like it when you 'use your discretion' and are 'self-directed', but you have a right to ask for - and document! - their feedback, so that if things go south later on (for whatever reason - including their lack of strategy about how they're looking to develop their business model), you have evidence that you did ask for input. Else they could just say you were lazy and took no direction from anyone. That wouldn't be fair on you if they did that, but fair can be a fantasy in work sometimes. You do need to look after your own interests, because if you don't, it's unlikely anybody else will.