Justification Document

World Wide Motion Pictures Corp.

CBA-493

Joe Ruiz Madeup

            I am currently enrolled in CBA 493 and doing a social media marketing internship at World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation (WWMPC). World Wide is a film distribution company that specializes in theatrical release. I focus on controlling our social media accounts by using online trends and corporate branding to benefit the company. I do this by promoting film and video products and providing executive support. The tasks that I am doing at my internship reflects the material that I have been learning in my marketing courses and also relates to the lessons learned in CBA-493. I would like to petition to get credit for a marketing elective as a result of taking CBA-493 and doing a marketing internship that added to my experience and knowledge as a professional and marketer.

            In CBA-493, we read three self-improvement books to help with procrastination, how to work in teams, and how to have difficult but important conversations. The first book is called “Eat that Frog; 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, by Brian Tracy. The book provides valuable lessons to maximize time efficiently by creating a detailed plan to achieve any goals. A detailed plan will give individuals purpose and motivation through actions. For example, in my internship one of our main goals was to revamp our Instagram account and make it more professional. To do so we had developed extensive marketing plan that will allow us to accomplish this objective by taking it one step at a time. The second book is called “Five Dysfunctions of a Team, a Leadership Fable,” by Patrick Lencioni. This book teaches individuals how to interact in teams effectively by getting rid of absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance accountability, and inattention to results. By creating trust through open communication from the start, a team is able to work together more effectively. For example, every Wednesday night, we have team meetings to come up with different tactics to reach out marketing objectives. Some ideas are silly while others are great. By encouraging interns to speak their ideas regardless of how great they are, we allow for open communication which is the base for an effective team. The last book we read is called Crucial Conversations which provides an important set of strategies and skills to handle difficult conversations. You can do this by focusing on creating a safe environment by having mutual respect. For example, whenever we have conflicting ideas at my internship, since we have a mutual respect for each other and a mutual end goal, it is okay to have conflicting ideas. We each use language like “in my opinion” or “from my perspective to prevent our ideas like sounding like fact. We also use contrasting phrases like “although I agree with your opinion, I also believe” to explain your side. It is important to avoid persuading people with your ideas. It shows you do not respect other opinions.

            As mentioned, at WWMPC, I mainly concentrate on social media marketing. With the other interns, we create content like videos, birthday post, blogs and memes, about our past films and current film festivals that our audience will find interesting. In the beginning of the internship, we were in the process of creating a strategic marketing plan for the company’s social media platforms. We started by creating a marketing plan for Instagram because it has more followers than our Twitter and Facebook accounts.  We established that we wanted to move away from memes because they made our profile seem like a random meme page. During our team meetings every Wednesday, we all determined that it would be best to carry a more professional image on Instagram and all our social platforms so people can see that we are a serious film company that distributes foreign and independent films. We did this by creating and a clear and short mission statement that describes our company values and goals. This objective statement is found in our “bio section” across all social media platforms. After, we determined the type of content we would post.

            Since we are a film company that focuses on independent and foreign films instead of big blockbuster hits, we have a niche market. By looking at the social media analytics, we were able to determine that our followers tend to be from the ages of 18-24, nearly half-male and female that are mainly from Los Angeles and New York.  We also analyzed our followers by looking at their profiles and we noticed that many followers are actors, directors, producers, and writers. With this information, we determined that it would be best to post about current film festivals to appeal to our niche marketing that is interesting in independent and foreign films. We tested this by posting film festival content and analyzed which posts got the most impressions, views, reach, comments, engagement, followers and likes. By using A/B testing, we used hashtags, location, and user nametags on some posts while removing them on others to see how they influenced our user interaction. After weeks of being in the trail and transition phase, we were finally able to find a marketing plan that focused on current film festivals, blogs about the film industry, and video and Photoshop content related to our past films. We know this strategy is working because we now have a steady number of followers that we gain each week. We also have an increase of impressions, reach, etc every week.

            We also practice traditional marketing. Each week we look for potential movie screeners that might have potential market in the US. The key is to look for marketing hooks in the film like a high production value, recognizable face, recognizable name, festival exposure, festival awards, critical reviews, and uniqueness of storyline. By talking about the films, we determine how we can sell a particular independent or foreign film and convince the audience to watch it in theaters. I also learned about the traditional forms of marketing that WWMPC uses for distribution of a film.

            Two other interns and I were sent to the American Film Market. We were there to represent the company and meet with production companies. Since I was there as a marketing intern, I had to know the traditional (prints and advertising, radio, and television) and digital marketing (social media) techniques used for the distribution of the film. Our CEO also taught us how to market WWMPC to production companies. We learned about the culture of the company, our strengths and weaknesses, distribution process, theatrical release pattern, film language/industry, and film acquisition process. By practicing prep questions, we were able to professionally engage with the production representatives and have a successful meeting. Through this experience we learned about public relations which is extremely important for marketing. As marketers, understanding public relations increases credibility with organizations and your market.

            Another valuable experience I’ve gained through this internship is learning how to create my own content by editing and creating videos, memes, gifs, and most importantly blogs. By using SEO’s (Search Engine Optimization), I’ve learned how to use key words in my blog to make the company’s website more visible in the search engine.

            This internship has been a great learning experience. World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation has allowed me to implement lessons I have learned in my marketing courses as well as CBA-493. Because I will have completed over 120 hours at my internship with the combination of taking CBA-493, I would like to substitute CBA-493 to gain credit for a marketing elective. I believe that the combination of CBA-493 and my internship at World Wide amount to the work and lessons learning in marketing electives.