Being able to work in a professional environment like this one has really made me appreciate what we do at High Tech High. I was able to affectedly talk and collaborate with my colleagues after doing it so much in group projects at school. But obviously my workplace is a lot different from other professional workplaces. I realized that people can still do hard work while being in an environment that they love. Everyone here is pretty tight knit, and a lot of people are friends with each other outside of work as well, which in turn makes an awesome work environment as well. I also learned that there are going to be tons of people who don't pull their own weight or can get on your nerves at work too, and my mentor has shown me how to deal with that too. I don't think this has made me change my college path, simply because I will probably still go into college as undecided. But it has shown me that I should find a work environment that is happy and fun, but is also a place to get stuff done and work hard. Jinx has shown me that that combination is possible.
My project here at J!NX was to mange and monitor our Instagram and Pinterest. Social media is one of the newer and most important forms of marketing, especially for J!NX's demographic, which is probably between 14-24. When looking at our Instagram feed before I started working on it, it seemed cluttered and unorganized, and none of the posts really caught my eye. So I decided to start an Analytics spreadsheet for our Instagram to help organize our posts and watch to see what helped it grow. Every day I recorded our follower count, likes, comments, as well as specific details for each individual post (you can view my Analytics spreadsheet below). I helped brainstorm, create, photograph, etc pictures to post on our social media that were relevant. I made sure the purpose of the post was to either market a product, show off a customer wearing our product, or to showcase how awesome our workplace is. These fell into 3 categories, Jinx clothing, Jinx life, and promotional (Jinx clothing ended up being the most popular). I also kept up on relevant news to make sure we weren't missing out on any events that would be good for us to post about, ie. a new game release. After posting something, I would go through tags that related to the post and like them, and interacting with the community that way got us a ton of support as well as followers. There were a few other things that also spiked an up rise in followers, ie. giveaway and putting a link to our Instagram account in the newsletter. We ended up gaining over 400 followers in 4 weeks, contrary to the 100 followers a month they used to get. You can view the spreadsheets and graphs I made to track our growth below, as well as my presentation on my project. I also added screenshots of our Instagram!
Instagram Analytics Spreadsheet Post Type Vs. Likes Spreadsheet/Graph Follower Growth Spreadsheet/Graph Here is the link to my POL Presentation PowerPoint Here is my final photo essay, enjoy! (Hover over the picture to read the caption.)
Closing in on my third week here at J!NX, I realized how much I wish I was as comfortable in the beginning as I am now. Sure, I updated my Analytics and did my best to help keep our socials updated. But now I am not afraid to voice my opinion, give my ideas, start conversations, etc. Along with that I have started to become a lot closer to some of my colleagues, and I wish I could work with them longer. To me, that is my biggest success. At J!NX they do a really great job at keeping the team feel like family, and we frequently go out to lunch, do game nights, and my colleague even made me the cutest bento boxes for lunch a few times, and it makes me happy to know that they seem to like me here. Of course I am proud of my project, but my growth with the company is more important in my opinion. I have also learned a lot by the way my mentor handles different situations. Like in every workplace there might be some people you don't exactly get along with for various reasons, and although that may be the case, my mentor is able to pick up their slack and do the work since she knows someone has to do it. We recently did a giveaway on Instagram, and another employee said he would handle contacting the winners and sending out the prizes. One week later, we received worried emails that they haven't been contacted and wondering if they even actually won. Instead of my mentor getting angry for making the company look bad, she calmly worked things out and contacted the winners again, which was not her job. I hope that when I work in a business environment, I will be able to handle stressful situations in a calm matter too.
Here are a few pictures that I took at J!NX, don't worry there will be a full photo essay later! (Click the pictures to read the captions)
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