What I Learned As A Digital Marketing Intern At My Third Internship (BONUS: Free Resume Template)

Do you want to get a fall, spring, or summer internship? Or are you wondering how to become a digital marketing intern in college?

If you’re a business, marketing, or communication major, getting a digital marketing internship is crucial for your post-graduate career. This is especially true as digital marketing is extremely cutthroat.

Prior to this, my very first internship was as a web developer intern at SBDigitalAgency, a startup which offers digital marketing to a variety of small businesses. My second internship was as a software engineering intern at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland.

In this article, I’ll be sharing my digital marketing experience at the USC Credit Union. As a rising senior and Computer Science and Business Administration major at the University of Southern California, this was a great way to jumpstart my professional experience. I hope that this will be helpful to other students that are looking for a work-study, fall, or summer internship.

What Is A Digital Marketing Intern?

First and foremost, I’m sure you’re thinking:

• What is a digital marketing intern?
• What can you be expected to do as a digital marketer?
• What experience do I need to get a digital marketing internship?

A digital marketing intern is someone who uses online channels to promote a company or a brand. (I know, digital marketing itself is a rather broad, umbrella term.) It generally encompasses the use of organic traffic (SEO, Instagram hashtags, etc.) or paid traffic (Facebook Ads, Google Ads, etc.) to build more brand awareness or generate sales and revenue. It’s also the heart of marketing on the internet.

Here’s an example of a digital marketing intern’s responsibilities:

• Daily management of social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
• Assist with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Run email marketing campaigns with MailChimp
• Run paid advertising with Facebook Ads and Google Ads, ensuring they meet optimal key performance indicators
• Design and post creatives using Canva or Adobe Photoshop to promote the company

How I Got My Digital Marketing Internship Using Work-Study

My third internship was as a digital marketing intern at the USC Credit Union in Los Angeles, California, a block away from my campus, in fall 2018.

I actually came across the internship position on USC’s Online Career Center listings during summer 2018 prior to starting my second internship as a software engineering intern at the World Economic Forum.

Originally, I was supposed to work a few months earlier during the summer, but I took the software engineering internship opportunity. We agreed to push it to the fall. When I returned to campus, I worked on Mondays and Fridays from August 2018 – December 2018. I had no classes on those days at the time. I used work study as part of my financial aid package.

Preparing for the Digital Marketing Internship Interview

Since this was also an on-campus position tailored to work-study students, I didn’t really have a formal or aggressive interview.

I simply came to the USC Credit Union in-person to recap my resume (where I already had Web Development and Software Engineering internship experience) and to confirm that I was eligible for work-study.

That was it.

General Day-to-Day Digital Marketing Tasks

Part of my onboarding was to review these key tutorials and guides on HubSpot:

(These links will also be useful to check out if you’re not sure where to start with digital marketing.)

I also received the USC Credit Union’s branding and messaging guidelines, as well as all marketing assets.

In general, my tasks were to create content in the form of images, videos, blogs, and brainstorm new campaign ideas to reach our main target audience (USC students and alumni).

Here’s what my Monday’s usually consisted of:

• Create and send out a “Reviews of the Week” document to the CEO
• Respond to the most recent Yelp reviews and address any negative reviews and reach out individually to help the customer
• Any leftover tasks from the previous Friday

Here’s what my Friday’s usually consisted of:

• Develop a content marketing plan with the other student intern
• Posting new content to Instagram
• Launch Facebook Ad campaigns promoting on-campus financial literacy workshops
• Research new marketing leads on HubSpot or across other company websites
• If it’s a game day or close to a gameday, film on campus and curate the content into Instagram posts

The First Digital Marketing Internship Project

Before a major rivalry football game, I took my Canon Rebel T6i DSLR camera and filmed some footage of the game day preparations.

You can watch the video below.

The Second Digital Marketing Project 

I was tasked with creating a mobile app banking promotional video.

You can watch the video below.

Final Thoughts

Digital marketing is quite all-encompassing. There’s so many different tasks you can accomplish. One thing we really wanted to get done but didn’t have any time to do with my Monday and Friday schedule was work on the USC Credit Union website and help optimize old pages for SEO.

Speaking of which, as a bonus, here’s some notes from an SEO optimization workshop my other fellow intern took:

Quick Tips for Succeeding at Your Digital Marketing Internship

If you’re looking to succeed at your first digital marketing internship, here’s a few quick tips to help you:

• Think outside of the box: Chances are, you’ve used the internet and social media for most of your life. Does your content get a lot of likes? Do you have a lot of followers? Use that to your advantage and craft a killer interview pitch!
• Follow the branding guidelines: Especially for larger institutions, there are strict brand guidelines that must be followed. This includes the logos, the exact HTML color codes, and even brand messaging. It is important this is communicated in a cohesive and consistent manner. Every potential customer interaction counts.
• You don’t need fancy graphic design software: I certainly didn’t know how to use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop that well. Instead, use Canva. It’s a free service that gives you amazing pre-made templates that are fully customizable.

BONUS: The Winning Resume That Got Me Interviews With JPMorgan Chase, Facebook, Salesforce, Accenture, BlackRock, Cisco, & Redfin

Now that you have seen how I got my first digital marketing internship and the projects I did, I want to show you my job-winning resume. If you follow my resume template, the odds of your resume opening the door to getting internship interviews with your dream companies will skyrocket.