How to Find the Perfect Social Media Intern for Your Pharmacy

When it comes to social media, you don’t have to go alone. On a budget? Get a plan for your social channels and then give local students a chance to learn and explore on your platforms. Mass communications and Marketing majors need to build their resumes with real world experience and your business can help.

Find a social media intern and offer them set compensation to tackle your social media content development. They can help plan, post and schedule content while coordinating approvals through you. Let them have access to your Facebook analytics and other metrics to prove ROI and ask them to layout their approach to making your social more appealing in the application process. This will provide unique ideas for your business to get better.

But how do you find a strong intern to help your business improve its social media presence? You go find them. Word of mouth can be helpful, but try to think outside the box on this one. Here are 4 ways to find a social superstar to help out:

Tap the communication department at a nearby college.

This group will hands down give you the best, albeit short term, social media intern. College students have flexible schedules and hardly take more than 16 hours of classes a week. They are learning how to take their skills with social from personal to professional, and they are hoping to set themselves apart from the rest once the graduate.

Reach out to the Communications or Marketing department at your local colleges and share the open position with them. See if they can recommend a strong candidate or 2 to review. Come up with a challenge for each possible candidate to work through upon meeting them, for example, ask them what they would do to encourage millennials to choose your pharmacy and what giveaways might entice the most new followers. Have them write a suggested tweet or Facebook post as part of the response.

The great thing with finding a strong college intern is that they become your best recruiting tool. Yes, your intern will graduate or move on to a new internship, but they are plugged in with co-eds throughout their classes and can suggest great candidates. They can also put you in touch with professors that teach Social Media 101 who can further nominate possible social superstars.

Think about recruiting prepharmacy students who just want a different look at pharmacy life. These students will understand the sciencey side of your business and bring fresh ideas for elevating your social presence.

Reach out the business department at your local high school.

High school students are constantly on their social platforms. From Snapchat to Instagram, this age group has grown up with social as a constant and may have the skills to create great content.

The trick here is finding a student that can translate their personal social skills into business quality social messaging. Teachers or the business department at your local high school can help identify strong talent. Ask specifically for strong writers that are creative and understand social media. If they’ve taken a class to learn about the intricacies of social media for business, that’s all the better.

This target group may not have the experience necessary for a strong portfolio, so be sure to ask them to create a few sample message to be shared by your business. Also, make sure they review your current social content to see who has the most creative ideas.

Yearbook, broadcast or newspaper experience can be a plus for visuals and can help your find a student who knows how to work a camera.

Post the position on LinkedIn and other platforms.

While recruiting students is great, don’t miss out on the opportunity to post your position on LinkedIn and other sites. Outline the types of social media your business would like to engage through and the number of hours you expect the intern to work.

Use the job description as your chance to introduce the candidate to the goals for your pharmacy. For example, my pharmacy wants to stand out from the big store chains or my pharmacy wants to use social to listen to customers and help solve their pharmacy-related problems.

Make sure to request that submissions come with a resume and a few examples from their previous work. You should also include a prompt asking them to write a few posts for a special promotion your store will be running. The more content you receive from applicants, the easier it will be to whittle down your options.

Ask your social community for suggestions.

FInally, don’t forget about the tools already at your disposal. You are seeking a social media intern that is plugged in and listening on social. There is no better place to find them than through social listening.

By asking your followers to tag or suggest possible candidates, you can find local interns who are already out there engaging. Post a link to your LinkedIn application process and ask potential interns to apply there to keep things straight.

Since you’re posting the position online and requesting help from your community, consider expanding your candidate pool to someone who may help you out remotely. With social, your intern doesn’t have to be onsite. They can submit content ideas from the comfort of their couch and can Skype in to discuss strategy. By expanding beyond a normal commute, you can increase the likelihood of finding a great social media intern.

No matter who you select, give them a chance to learn and try new things with your social channels. Let them tap their creative approach and be open to new posting styles or even entirely new social media platforms. Ask them to measure the success of their campaigns using analytics and be prepared to write a stellar recommendation letter to help them land their dream job. Writing a recommendation on LinkedIn in a public format is also an excellent way of thanking a stellar intern for a job well done.