On an evening in January, I got an Outlook notification headlining Spondeo Agency. My phone buzzes from the kitchen table.
“Congratulations! We Are thrilled to extend you an offer to work as a Social Media Assistant under a three-month contract”.
I pull up a chair. My thumbs are racing through the keypad as I dial numbers, and the contact “Ma” auto-generates for me to hit “call.” My leg is aggressively shaking against the hardwood floor that it’s banging from underneath the table.
“Mom, I got it! I am so excited. This will be a perfect setup for a career path in media.”
These past few weeks as a social media assistant have been the most valuable learning experience thus far in my marketing career. According to my manager, the Agency fell under an “unplanned niche,” where the bulk of her clients are in the health and wellness industry. Some clients I have already worked on include a plastic surgeon, a dental cosmetic studio, and a medical spa clinic. She describes her work as “rewarding” because “the clients tend not to have a lot of time on their hands to do the marketing stuff because they are busy being doctors, that it gives [her] the creative freedom to develop and grow a brand for them.” After working for less than three weeks, I already understand the excitement that she means.
Some of the projects I have started working on revolve around content creation. I develop Instagram content calendars for the medical spa clinic and the plastic surgeon displaying the graphics I created on Canva and media assets from the Agency. I also draft and research hashtags to help boost the client’s algorithm. I recently have been editing the Medical Spa’s raw footage about their services to create videos for their TikTok, using a trending video editing software called “Capcut.” Then, I schedule the content using the management system Planoly.
On top of social media marketing, I had the opportunity to build my data analysis and community management skills. I use insights to pitch new development opportunities for the client’s content, monitor their social media channels, and engage and reply to comments and direct messages, including outreach. I will soon start working on an influencer marketing program for one client, the medical spa clinic, and I am excited to assist with the creative strategies and partnerships for the program.
I have also started working on projects that revolve around client branding. On top of developing content for two doctors that are relatively new clients to the Agency, I had the opportunity to create a brand kit for both so that their identities are consistent across omnichannels and pitch my projects to them based on my social media research. I then used my new brand kits to design a new website homepage for one client and to ultimately build a new website for the other.
Since the Agency is headquartered in California, I have been practicing good teamwork and time management skills. To accommodate clients and managers working in different time zones, I send deliverables before deadlines and tackle various rewarding assignments at once. In doing so, I have learned to set my priorities at the beginning of the week and rank each project by their importance, which I evaluate based on its due date and time constraint. Then, I write a to-do list each day with short-term goals on how I will tackle these assignments, making sure they are measurable so that I am completing the task little by little each day and have room for other jobs to work on. My manager makes these organization visuals easier by using the database Asana, and she assigns me tasks under a “to-do” list. I can mark the assignments “in progress” or “complete.” The workflow has been seamless by using Slack, another database companies use for project management, to communicate with the Agency if I have questions.
My first month at Spondeo Agency has been a rewarding experience, and I look forward to continuing learning. I often finish my projects inspired and excited for what’s next, which was a tell-tale sign to me that I will pursue a media career post-graduation.