What Companies Want in a Social Media Intern

As well as looking good on your resume and netting you college credit, interning in social media can offer you incredibly valuable experience in the world of work, where social media experience is becoming ever-more important.

However, competition for good placements can be fierce, so it’s good to know what companies look for in a social media intern, so you can focus on improving or highlighting those skills.

From big companies, small businesses, non-profits, educational institutions and commercial ventures, we talked to the people who recruit social media interns to find out just what it is they want in a candidate.

If you want to know what makes a good social media intern, look no further than Jamy Lyn Johnson of AGCO. In the spirit of full disclosure, Jamy is a client that has fully embraced the ‘e1evation workflow‘, personalized it and made it her own. A few weeks ago, the AGCO blog [which Jamy drives along with her boss Sue Otten] received a huge honor when they earned a spot in the Alltop Agriculture channel — kind of a bloggers ‘hall of fame’ making them the only Farm Equipment manufacturer to achieve that hallowed status…

What make Jamy so successful? Mashable lists 4 qualities that companies want:

• Good communication skills
• Solid writing skills
• Top notch social skills
• Enthusiasm

Jamy had all four out of the box. As a journalism major at Furman, she gained the solid foundation that many business bloggers are lacking. She was also familiar with social media tools but needed a system and a process for using them in concert to achieve business objectives. That’s where I came alongside her for a brief period of time to connect the tools and give her a logical workflow using Google Reader combined with all the tools on the AGCO blog.

If you’re looking for the real deal in social media interns, look no further than Jamy — she’s a model for success in this space! AGCO better snap her up soon… 😀