I thought I'd give you an insight into the day-to-day life of the Online, News and Rewiews Intern at Red Online. The Red Online Team sits next to the Red Magazine Team in the Hearst Magazines offices. Hearst Magazines is an absolute publishing powerhouse and houses the following titles:
About Soap, Best, Company, Cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitan Body, Country Living, ELLE, ELLE Collections, ELLE Decoration, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Good Ideas, Harper’s Bazaar, High Street Edit, House Beautiful, Inside Soap, Men’s Health, Prima, Red, Real People, Reveal, Runner’s World, Women’s Health and Zest.
A huge part of the job is to help run Red Magzine's social media. Each morning I schedule the following onto Twitter and Facebook:
#todayweare
'#RedChat
#whattowatchtonight
Et voila! (Spot the ones I wrote!)
Another huge part of the job is to write up the copy for the TV Guide 'What to watch tonight' and for 'What's On.'
'What to watch tonight' is put together on the Wednesday to go live on the website on Friday morning to cover the following week. I'd start on Wednesday by reading The Radio Times to see everything that was on the following week then make a shortlist of programmes which I thought would appeal to the average Red Magazine reader. It had to be the right mixture of happy, sad, serious, thought-provoking etc and of films, new series, reality tv, series finalies, documentatiries and one-off specials etc. I'd put my list together (about 3-4 suggestions for each day) and send over to Hannah. Hannah would then chose the best options for each day and send back to me.
I'd then have to write the 'opener' or the 'blurb' you see at the beginning of the page which gives a brief overview of the TV on that week. I'd then have to write succinct but interesting copy for each of the programmes and include the time, date and channel information. After I'd done this I would print it out and give to Hannah for her to ammend.
I'd make all of the changes and then copy the text into CMS (content management system) which is sort of like writing a new post in Blogger but a WHOLE LOT MORE COMPLICATED. Nina is in charge of the picture desk and she would then find the best photo and add it to the post. Once it was all written up I'd schedule it to go 'live' at 4:30am on Friday morning.
Et voila!
The Intern is also in charge of writing up the different events for the 'What's On' section and again I would write my first draft, print out for Hannah, make the corrections and changes and then add to CMS and Nina would find the best photo.
Et voila!
The Intern is also responsible for updating the 'sticker promos' every day - these run down the side of Red Online and link in to the twitter and facebook posts from the day which include #todayweare and #whattowatchtonight or #booknow (etc) - and this involves going into CMS each day and changing the photos and links.
I also had the ridiculously exciting opportunity of attending A Press Screening at the Soho Hotel for 'Rock of Ages'. The press were led downstairs into the most divine little screening room and given beer and wine and a huge press pack with all the details of the film. I thought I might feel slightly silly going on my own but the place was packed and the film was INCREDIBLE (can't say any more!) so I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I shall be writing up my review over the next few days - how exciting!
Every Friday at 1pm Red Online hosts the live 'Red Chat' with inspirational women. It's the Interns jon to read the chat and to tweet out the most interesting quotes and include a link to the chat to encourage people to come and join in! This was a serious lesson in speed typing as you can't copy and paste from the chatroom so you have to be super speedy but also ensure there are absolutely no spelling or grammar errors - plus you have to ensure you're only choosing things that can fit into a tweet (taking into account you have to include the hashtag and the link as well) ..ahh! As well as tweeting out quotes I also keep an eye on the @ replies and #redchat hashtag for any reader questions.
It was seriously fun though and I always found what I was reading and tweeting to be genuinely inspirinh
It's been a huge challenge and learning experience for me to understand how to write in a completely different style than what I'm used to. Writing for a woman's magazine audience and in a professional capacity, so you need to be chatty and informal but you have to represent 'Red' as a whole and not just your own personality- so not just typing however and whatever I like like on my blog!
I'm loving learning how to write for different audiences and in a completely different style, how to write copy for all sorts of things from the TV guide to film reviews and it's been so useful to learn how to use social media management systems like Hootsuite and to get to grips with CMS.
If you have any other questions then leave them in the comments below!
- If you're looking for a Media Internship check out my Internships Page
-If you want my advice on getting an Internship then read my 'How To'
-Finally, If you want to see my outfits from this week at Red see below
