Note: This is the final of three blog posts from Samantha Schwartz, our super summer social media intern. She’s returning to Grinnell College next week, and we’ll miss her creativity, devotion and enthusiasm! Best of luck for the school year.

Ever experienced this? You’re talking to someone on your cell phone when you hear the shrill ring of your home phone. You have a few short seconds to decide who’s more important, and then you have to act. You feel ambushed, overwhelmed and, well, popular. Now take that feeling, and multiply it by 10. That’s what it’s like to work in social media at The World Company. In one day, I could end up posting from 10 different Twitter channels and 6 Facebook pages.

Jessica Schilling (The World Company’s social media specialist and my mentor this summer) and I are always amazed at how it comes in waves. You think you’ve got a quiet afternoon to catch up, and then suddenly you have 10 new projects and 50 new messages to deal with. That’s the beauty of it, though. It’s an organic process. The chatter begins when something exciting or controversial is about to occur, and you can feel the intensity with each “whrrrl” notifying sound the computer produces.

This summer has been an all-out whirlwind, and I wouldn’t trade it for a year’s worth of margarita sherbet at Sylas and Maddy’s. (If you’ve tasted it, you know what kind of sacrifice that is.) I’ve learned from the absolute best — Jessica always answered my questions, embraced my ideas and helped me achieve my goals beyond the scope of my internship. I’ll give you just a sampling of what I’ve learned this summer. For the sake of clarity, I’ve divided what I’ve learned into three categories: social media tools, social media skills and life skills.

Tools

HootSuite/TweetDeck: HootSuite and TweetDeck allow you to schedule tweets and Facebook posts ahead of time, as well as use multiple social media accounts from one dashboard. Both can crash from time to time (TOTAL disaster), but they’re so much more practical than sending out timed tweets manually. Which is right for you? Here’s a comparison of a few key points:

HootSuite
• Website interface, so usable from any browser
• Attractive interface
• Better with Facebook links; you can customize the preview text and photo when scheduling
• Faster update time than TweetDeck

TweetDeck
• Downloadable app
• Easy to manage multiple channels in a single view
• Auto-complete @mentions (makes it easier to keep a conversation going)
• Easier interface for searching for and monitoring users, @mentions and phrases

If you only have a few accounts to manage and you’re a social media beginner, I’d go with HootSuite. If you’re a more advanced user looking for special features, I’d choose TweetDeck.

Bit.ly: Both HootSuite and TweetDeck have built-in link shorteners, but if you’re sending out a tweet manually, shortening links you include by running them through bit.ly (or your choice of third-party link shortners) first will leave you with more characters for your message.

Ctrl-Click: Now, I LOVE my keyboard shortcuts. I’m all over Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, and even the advanced Ctrl-K (hyperlink). However, I must admit that before this summer, I did not know the wonders of Ctrl-Click. It allows you to click a link on a page in a browser and have it open in a new tab. It’s so useful for those times when you’re reading something, and midway through, there’s a link to something else interesting, but you don’t want to stop reading item #1. Voila! Ctrl-Click that sucker and read it later. Jessica taught me this on day 1 to help me keep track of the LJWorld.com Twitter and Flickr updates I send out each morning, but now I use it for everything!

Social Media Skills

Twitter Find & Follow: Find and follow is any easy enough concept–find users on Twitter and follow them, hoping they’ll follow you back. But deleting users who don’t follow you back is a huge pain, so finding a relevant audience is important! Jessica taught me to look for similar groups with big Twitter followings to gain an audience. For instance, if I were a new Mexican restaurant in Lawrence, I might scour a list of Lawrence-area Esquina followers or even just local followers of the entire Lawrence Originals locally-owned restaurant group.

Tweeting on Multiple Channels: I got a chance to tweet on multiple World Company channels. Besides the classic @LJWorld channel, I tweeted on @LJWonthestreet, @LJWOpinions, @WorldCoAds (ad department channel), @LJWMarketplace, @CraveLawrence, @WellCommons and @LawGiveBack – not to mention client advertisers’ channels. Whew! For each channel, I had to keep in mind the audience and the proper tone.

Twitter Q & A: Put simply, if you never ask questions on Twitter, you won’t get answers. If you’re a cupcake business, for example, ask your customers what their favorite frosting flavor is and you’ll open up a conversation rather than just making boring, flat updates. Similarly, if you don’t answer your followers’ questions in a timely manner, they won’t come to you again. For instance, I was able to bring in traffic before this year’s Downtown Lawrence Sidewalk Sale by answering shoppers’ questions about deals. In return, we increased our follower base when we became known as a source for Sidewalk Sale answers.

Managing a Facebook page: On Facebook, your page can be easily spammed if you’re not careful. By checking it daily (or several times a day, depending on the page), you ensure that you delete the spammers before they start to hurt your credibility — and you can also answer real questions from your Facebook fan base, once again establishing yourself as a knowledge source.

Event Support: The day of your big event is an important time to be involved on Facebook and Twitter. For instance, while Jessica managed the insane amount of local Facebook and Twitter chatter during the Sidewalk Sale, I hit the streets, took pictures and posted them to our Facebook page.

Other Skills

Extreme Multitasking: I explained this above. Social media is completely overwhelming, and it’s not a job for everyone. But if you can do it, any other multitasking you have to do in life seems like a walk in the park.

Website Building: Jessica has shown me the websites she’s designed, and she also helped me design my own. This summer I launced Grinnell Kudos, a site where students at my college can post anonymous compliments about each other, and Jessica was full of ideas and suggestions to get it off the ground.

Understanding the (LJ) World of Advertising: I’ve gotten to attend Monday morning meetings with all of the LJW advertising staff, and I’ve learned so much just from listening. Advertising is so much more than “selling stuff”; you really have to get to know your client in order to find the right campaign and the right medium with which to present it.

Being a Teammate: Jessica’s title may be “Social Media Specialist”, but really, she’s willing to pitch in whenever she can. Whether it’s wrapping a balloon around a parking meter for the Lawrence GiveBack Free Parking Day or helping out with Lawrence.com’s Dinner and a Movie contest, Jessica lends a hand. It’s a skill I’m picking up, too — just recently, I got to work on Sunflower Horizons and WellCommons radio PSA scripts.

All in all, my experience at The World Company has been a very positive one. If you’re out there looking for an internship, come help Jessica! I assure you, she’ll have plenty for you to do.