As I round out week 4 at Elliott Bay Brewing, I am feeling excited! I am excited for the Barrel Aged Invitational happening in just a few weeks, and the new marketing strategies we are working on for that event. I am excited because the first employee profile that I wrote went live on Tuesday and received positive feedback. I am excited because yesterday I went to Lake City and took some really great shots at EBBC and Brother Barrel, and I look forward to sharing them with social media. Most of all, I am excited because I finally feel in the groove of things.
I am a Type-A, perfectionist. I thrive off of constructive criticism, reassurance, and schedules. This internship is completely self-directed. I choose my hours, have complete creative control over posts and marketing strategies, and I do not receive much feedback on my work unless I ask for it. To some, that would sound amazing. To me, too much freedom breeds fear!
Elliott Bay Brewing did not have a staff member dedicated to social media management prior to my joining the team, so, they are just about as in the dark as I am. I was constantly feeling anxious the first three weeks. I was nervous that I was disappointing people. I was afraid I wasn’t meeting expectations. I was convinced that it looked like I was not putting in enough effort, even though I was working my BUTT off and spending a lot of my free time outside of internship hours checking up on socials to track progress.
I was able to reflect quite a bit this week, and I have come to terms with the fact that I am simply too hard on myself. It is important to push ourselves to be our best, but it is also important to give ourselves credit for the work we do!
I am relieved to say that week 4 was fabulous. Of course I am still working just as hard, but I have begun to relax and give myself some credit. After all, this is an internship, not a career. It is ok not to be perfect and to not know exactly what is going on all of the time! The past 4 weeks have taught me to be present, flexible, and to trust myself. Woo!
————-
Now that I have gotten all of that off of my chest, I would love to share this weeks accomplishments.
As mentioned earlier, I (finally) posted the first employee spotlight article. It was written about one of the head chefs at the Burien pub. His name is David and we had the best time chatting. I was not able to fit in everything he shared with me, but in summary, he was forced to drop out of high school and get a GED so that he could make money to help support his family. He never wanted to be a chef. It was supposed to be a temporary job, but cooking opportunities fell into his lap over and over again and he was a natural. He was super sweet and fun to talk to, and I hope some of that came across in the profile. I wish I could have shared more of his story, but it would have gone on forever!! Check out David’s spotlight article here.
This week I also did quite a bit of research. I noticed that increased follower count as begun to slow since I first started. I did some research on how to create the most effective posts, what not to do, and how to increase engagement. Three of my biggest takeaways from this research were that:
- Timing matters! Posting a photo of a beer at 9:00 am is not as effective than posting a photo of a beer at 3:00 pm. I like to check things off of my mental list, so I would typically post on socials in the morning or early afternoon, simply to finish the task. From now on, I will be posting at times with more purpose.
- Consumers find it annoying when there are too many promotional posts, slang is used, and when the author tries to be funny. This was an important one for me. I used slang in a post on Wednesday. I said “spooky szn,” thinking I was being hip. After reading this article I quickly went back and edited the wording to say “Halloween.”
- Photos with people in them get 38% more likes. –> This is VERY important information. I was told right off the bat that I could not post photos with customers in them for legal reasons, because getting permission was too much work. However, 38% increase in likes would be a LOT more likes so I did some research. It turns out, there are not many legal issues around taking photos of customers as long as you get verbal consent from them and are not using the photos to profit (ex. for a commercial or promotional pamphlets). In fact, not to my surprise, it appears that many people would be excited to be featured on a company page. They will often repost the photo. (I know I would!!)
Some other week 4 accomplishments include but are not limited to, taking photos of food and beer at Brother Barrel and the Lake City Pub, editing photos, and writing out more interview dialogues.
My goal for next week is to continue to post content that aligns with the research I did this week, take some photos with people in them, and post another employee spotlight. I’m also excited to meet with Dan on Tuesday to shoot some barrel tastings, and to meet with Doug on Thursday to shoot/learn more about his sustainable yeast project! As usual, I will continue to be consistent with daily posting to socials.