The closer you get to the end of college, the more your plan crystalizes: start a business, launch a career, or move on to higher education. All of these things can benefit from one thing you’re probably missing: marketing skills. During my time with Vision Advertising during my internship, I was given the opportunity to learn marketing skills and how they can help me in my future endeavors.

Finding The Right Marketing Tools

Learning how to use marketing tools is important because it offers you the ability to express yourself online professionally. In my experience, using programs that offer room for more creative freedom and are user friendly is a recipe for success. Vision helped me find the right tools to flesh out my marketing ideas and reach my goals. Content creation, the use of graphic design suites, and office software were some of the most useful tools I learned how to use.

Content Creation

Creating content, both internally for your business and externally as marketing, are essential skills to have. Below are some of the top programs I have used during my internship.

• Meta Business Suite: For Instagram and Facebook posts, the Meta Business Suite is great for pre-scheduling posts.
• Dropbox: After creating a project, you will need a place to store it. Dropbox is a great resource for easy storage and online sharing with collaborators and clients.

Graphic Design Suites

The use of programs like Canva and the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) are vital for creating internal and external graphics to get your ideas (and products!) out to your audience. Canva, in particular, is useful because it is free! Creating Your First Social Media Graphics in Canva

Business & Office Software

Although social media and graphic design platforms are fun to use, at work, you’ll still need fundamental applications. Communication, organizational, and like programs are vital to your success:

• Task Management Software: Throughout my internship, I used Asana with my manager to organize and easily share projects rather than communicate through email chains.
• Microsoft Office Tools: While the use of Microsoft Word is popular in the business world, the use of Excel for content creation or Microsoft Teams for meetings gets the most out of your Office Suite.
• Email and Messaging: Communication is key for any business, especially internally. Being able to message with the team and have a company email was pivotal.
• Excel: For content creation, I used Excel to create a monthly calendar for social media post images and captions. This was a great way to organize all of the information in one place.

How Learning Marketing Skills Have Helped Me

Over the course of my internship with Vision Advertising, I learned how to market everything – in essence, how to sell. With that information, I have been working on building myself professionally and being able to sell my skills to employers. I have been working on my LinkedIn and Instagram profiles as well as posting graphics and photos of my projects. I use Canva for many things, one of which is that I built myself a portfolio to showcase my projects. And the practical skills I learned at Vision have helped me flesh out my skills and experience section on my resume!

Knowing about marketing and learning to market are very different, whether you own a business or are just starting your time at college like I was. If you are on your college journey, one of the best ways to get hands-on professional experience is through an internship. If you’re interested in learning more about how Vision Advertising handles its all remote internships, make sure to check out their internship opportunities today!