My final two days working in the social selling department, I worked on finishing my projects and continuing to get a feel for environment. It was really cool to be able to collaborate with Alli and Courtney to understand their experienced perspective. While the project of analyzing 1500 professional LinkedIn profiles seemed monotonous at first, it did end up very interesting in the long run. After Courtney’s explanation of how using social media can be such a building factor in business, it was really surprising how underdeveloped most of the employee’s profiles were. Pulling up each profile brought a sometimes very surprising profile picture, for a corporate setting. Not a day went by that I wasn’t overwhelmed by the incredibly welcoming environment of SAS. I didn’t run into a single person that didn’t match the friendly and personable traits that seemed to fit every employee. Aside from learning about the specifics of Courtney and Alli’s jobs, it was very interesting to learn about the social selling/marketing department as a whole. It’s very much a team atmosphere – what one person manages for a personal account, there’s a whole team of employees working on a company’s online presence. I didn’t really have an expectations going into my first day in the social selling department, and I’m very happy with the experience that I ended up with!
Reaghan
The Necessary Evils – Day 3, Reaghan
Today was relatively laid back with not as many meetings to attend. Most of our day consisted of editing & uploading the video from Courtney’s social selling class, which has to go through an approval process before being sent out to all of SAS’s social selling department. There were a few meetings after lunch with Courtney’s co-workers, but it was really interesting to hear how the team is putting the program together. Social selling is a fairly new department for SAS, so it’s a building process. SAS locations all around the world have social selling reps, and one of Courtney’s responsibilities is to travel to these other locations. She uploads really cool pictures of her travels to the Facebook page linked, it’s definitely worth checking out!
New Week, New Mentor – Day 6, Reaghan
Today I started working with Alli Soule. Alli works on a different level of social networking than Courtney, whereas Courtney’s expertise is in social selling. I really appreciated Alli’s interest in what I do with social networking and how she can help me grow my platform. Alli is a trainer for SAS and teaches employees how to use social media to their advantage, and to the advantage of the SAS reputation. There are 6 people on her team, each with a specified job; one is in charge of posting on the SAS social media platforms, one is considered the “graphic designer” and creates picture tiles for the online sites, and so on.
Working with Alli has me on the 6th floor, close to Dr. Goodnight’s office. It’s quite intimidating, but also serves as extra encouragement to put my best foot forward. Coming out of the elevators, the “lobby area” for this floor are lined with Dr. Goodnight’s unique rock collection. I wish I could have gotten more pictures to show how extensive this display is, but I didn’t want t
o disturb the conference rooms that they were next to.
Aside from continuing my project of analyzing the 1500 profiles belonging to social selling employees, Alli started me on a new project to help write the “what it is” (example for twitter shown) for the social media help center on “Slide Share,” which is a type of social media that is owned by LinkedIn which allows users to search and find a presentation on any subject. The Social Media Resource Portal gives a description and help to employees looking to use social media.
Today was a really exciting start to the week, and I’m looking forward to finishing my internship with Alli!
Employees or Family? – Day 4&5, Reaghan
On Thursday, I was able to experience the incredible manner in which SAS treats their employees. Courtney and I made our way over to the food truck rally, where there were many options for different food than the delicious choices that are normally offered in the SAS cafeterias. It was wonderful to be able to eat outside and people watch to see what else was going on, such as a dance class and a mapped run through the campus. I have come to realize how SAS treats their employees so well and suits them with a very positive environment, and in return the employees are happy to work there. A few weeks ago, SAS also celebrated 40 years with a spring festival that was a few hours of giving back to the employees. SAS is very compatible with their families, and I think that’s what creates such positive employees!
We were also able to eat at a different cafeteria from the normal building we go to on Friday, and it was really cool to see how different options of foots are offered at different buildings.
Thursday and Friday consisted of more meetings and videos to be pushed out for oncoming sales students to SAS, and Courtney getting prepared to leave for her trip.
Links & Connections – Day 2, Reaghan
We started today at SAS’s other location, 940 Cary Parkway. Courtney led a “workshop” on social selling to new SAS marketing employees and helped them use LinkedIn and other social networks to their advantage. I was in charge of recording the video for the workshop, which she would later put online for a bigger audience across the world. The employees were newly hired to the marketing /selling teams at SAS, and are given hundreds of companies that they need to try to sell the SAS technology to. They all made comments about how amazed they are about being able to connect and find people on a new level through social media. One of the most interesting things that Courtney talked about was how to connect with people through social media on a personal level, rather than just through an online presence. Through LinkedIn, she was able to pull up connections that she shared with her potential “targets,” as she called them, which would make it easier to make a direct and personal contact. For example, one of the students in the class was working on closing a deal with Pinterest. Courtney was able to pull up an employee of Pinterest who had experience working with SAS and had worked at Target, another business that uses SAS technology. There are so many tools to use in social media that enhance the ability of sales employees, it was very cool to learn about it today!
First Day in the Social Selling Department – Reaghan
The first day of shadowing Courtney consisted of mostly meetings, but I was able to meet some interesting people including someone who was in the first graduating middle school class from Cary Academy. Courtney travels every other week of the month, so it was cool to see her planning with people all over the world for her upcoming travel plans. She filled me in about her current focus being on setting up public profiles on business-type accounts such as LinkedIn and how businesses and individuals connect with it. I was then set on a project of analyzing the 1,500+ employees involved in the social selling aspect of SAS, and considering how professional their profile looked. It was surprising to see how many people had a very sloppy profile but a very important title, and Courtney reinforced how much those individuals might be missing out on because potential business investors will look for their information online and not find it.
The entire SAS environment is very welcoming and I’m looking forward to the week ahead!
CA Work Experience Program 2016 