Blogging and Social Media Intern Program – Fall Session – Accepting Applications Now

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Several months ago we announced 3 New Ways We’re Helping Moms Work At Home.

The first is our Work-At-Home and Business Building Resource Email List where we will share targeted quality information about working at home and building small businesses.

The second is our new Work At Home Moms’ Strategy Hour Google+ Hangouts that we’re running every other Wednesday at 10 am Pacific / 1 pm Eastern. During these strategy sessions, we invite expert guests to join us and share tips, tactics and straight talk about working at home.

And three months ago we tackled the third program, our…

3 Month Blogging and Social Media Intern Program

Over the summer we ran our first ever blogging and social media intern program. It was a wonderful experience and we are thrilled with the fabulous work from these five bloggers who completed the program.

We are excited to announce we will run another Intern Training session this fall from Sept 20 – Dec 13, 2013.

If you would like to be considered for the program, please fill out this application form as soon as possible. We do have many candidates already waiting, but we want to provide another chance for you all to submit your applications.

We sincerely love to help women build work-at-home careers and successful businesses. Janice and I are so thankful to have this unique lifestyle where we work online and can fit our work schedules around our childrens’ schedules.

Our crazy busy work-at-home lives are not for everyone, but we know there are many women who would love to share this lifestyle. We sincerely want to help change lives and give others the skills and work experience they need to either get a job in new media working for another company or push their own business to a new level.

Continually colleagues ask us for recommendations or advice on hiring blogging assistants, copywriters, editors, social media assistants, social media managers and other new media roles. The fact is these positions require very specific skills and training that can be hard to obtain.

Many bloggers have a subset of required skills or some experience in the different areas, but really do need advanced training to be able to start the job running without much extra training from an employer.

We don’t claim to know everything, but we do have tons of knowledge and experience we can share through advanced training sessions and real work assignments that interns can later use to prove their skills to future employers.

Application Process

Over the next week, we will accept applications to the program. We will carefully review and interview candidates and invite a small number to our team to learn and work with us for 3 months. In this fall session we will accept 6 interns who will be assigned blogging tasks and 2 interns who will focus on managing social media accounts.

Upon completion of the program, we will provide references and Linked In recommendations to help interns move on to new challenges. We may also consider candidates for additional paid work on one of our teams.

These are unpaid intern positions where training is provided in exchange for work assignments.

If you would like to be considered for this program, please review the following requirements and commitments. If you believe you should be an intern with 5 Minutes for Mom, please fill out this application form here.

Program Description

3 Month Blogging and Social Media Intern Program

This unique 3 month intern program will provide extensive training and work experience in blogging and social media to enable successful participants to work in new media roles as virtual blogging assistants, blog copywriters, editors or social media managers for professional bloggers or organizations and/or further the success of their own blogs.

Intern Requirements

While the term “intern” often implies students or young adults, our intention for this program is to provide this training opportunity for our target audience who tend to be women bloggers and are often mothers.

Please do not be thrown off by the term “intern”. It isn’t only college students who should be given chances to learn and get on-the-job training experience.

As we interview applicants for our program, we will be looking to find those motivated individuals who will successfully take this training to the next level and either land a fabulous new job or push their own blog or business forward.

We require a 3 month commitment. We will be heavily investing in your training and unless there are unforeseeable events that require you to quit the internship, we want to see all participants successfully complete the program.

Successful candidates should have

• Experience blogging,
• Good writing and editing skills,
• Experience with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other social media platforms,
• Passion for social media,
• Good technical knowledge with desire and ability to find and learn new tools quickly, and
• Ability to work independently as a responsible, reliable, driven self-starter.

Commitment Required

• 3 Month involvement from the time the group is selected and the program begins.
• At least 2 hours to train and work in the program per day, 5 days a week.
• Be able to attend virtual meetings which usually will be scheduled at 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern Mondays and Fridays.

Program Benefits – Training and Proven Work Experience

Through detailed training you will hone your skills and prove your abilities through work assignments for our network of sites and social media platforms.

You must have fundamental blogging and social media knowledge, passion for new media and writing talent. Through this training and intern program, we help you improve your abilities and prove your skills to future employers.

You will receive advanced training and gain proven experience in…

1. Blog Copywriting and Editing
   • Research topics, story ideas and write compelling blog posts.
   • Write attention-grabbing headlines and titles.
   • Research and use appropriate keywords for SEO purposes.
   • Read content and correct for errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
   • Rewrite copy to make it easier for people to understand.
   • Evaluate submissions from writers to decide what to publish.
   • Edit basic HTML for formatting posts.
   • Plan content, create and manage an editorial calendar.
      
2. WordPress
• Use both WordPress Visual and HTML editors.
• Use plugins such as Pretty Link, Easy Recipe and others.
• Create and use WordPress Templates.
   
3. Develop and Implement Social Media Strategies
   • Use advanced Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest Marketing methods.
   1. Plan and execute effective daily content for Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
   2. Increase fan, follower and subscriber numbers on social media sites without using any form of spam tactics.
   3. Increase engagement, comments, replies and retweets with followers.
   4. Build a subscriber and follower base with media and PR companies.
   5. Spread brand awareness by commenting and engaging with like-minded profiles and users.
   6. Monitor for mentions and reply as necessary.
   7. Create goals for growth and supply reports using effective measurement tools.
   • Translate client marketing objectives into comprehensive social media strategies.
   • Develop and implement creative strategies.
   • Drive traffic to campaigns and destination sites.
   • Manage presence, interact with online communities and seed content.
   • Advise content creation teams on best practices on various platforms.
   • Monitor effective benchmarks for measuring the impact of social media programs and analyze, review, and report on effectiveness of campaigns.
   • Track & report on social media growth, activity, and influence.
      
4. Photo Editing and Designing Graphics
   • Ability to design and create simple and attractive graphics to use in posts or blog sidebars.
   • Basic photo editing skills using PicMonkey and Photoshop Elements.
   • Create attractive, “pin-worthy” images for blog posts.
   • Experience searching, finding and editing stock photos to create engaging blog posts.
      
5. Video Editing and YouTube Marketing
   • Ability to shoot, edit and upload videos to YouTube along with appropriate SEO descriptions and tags.
   • Basic knowledge of video editing and screen capture software programs.
   • Grow YouTube channel subscriber base.

Success in this program will prove to future employers that you have mastered all the above skills and as well you can:

• Collaborate and work well as part of a virtual team.
• Be trusted with passwords to social media accounts.
• Self-manage and responsibly work largely on your own with minimal direction and supervision.
• Execute multiple initiatives against aggressive schedules.
• Maintain records of action and workflow.
• Be accountable to deadlines.

Yes, It Will Be Hard Work

The previous lists of training topics and skills you will gain are extensive, so this clearly will not be easy. For us to accomplish all of this within 3 months will take dedication and hard work from us all as a team. I will be devoting a huge amount of time creating training materials and working through examples with the group.

We plan to accept 6 interns to handle primarily blog writing and editing assignments and 2 interns to focus on assisting with the management of our social media channels.

Applications are OPEN for Fall Session Sept 20 – Dec 13, 2013.

If you are up for this challenge, fill out the application form here.

What The Summer Interns Have Said…

“You will collaborate with a great group of bloggers and have the opportunity to learn about the real business process behind running a blog.”

“Interning with 5 Minutes for Mom gave me a great opportunity to meet new people and learn the inner workings of a successful website. ”

“This program was a ton of fun. I really enjoyed working closely with a group of other dedicated bloggers. I learned so much from Susan and Janice and had fun writing for their own blog – exploring a different website and styles of writing than my own blog. I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned to my own blog (and I’ve already done that) and hopefully putting all my new skills to use at a job sometime soon. :)”

“My internship with 5 Minutes for Mom introduced me to the tribe of bloggers that I have been looking for since I started. Because we were all in it for the same reasons and have the same work ethic, meeting them was the icing to the cake of what we learned this summer.”

Find out more about our fabulous Intern Alumni and why you should hire them…

 

Written by Susan Carraretto, co-founder of 5 Minutes for Mom
Talk with me: @5minutesformom and Facebook.com/5minutesformom
Pin with me at http://pinterest.com/5minutesformom/