Tawnie Simpson

Professor Hand
ENC 4942
Internship Reflection

My internship with Domi Station has been incredibly transformative for my skills and
confidence as a communications strategist and a writer in general. As an entrepreneurial
incubator for startups, Domi Station always provided variety of writing opportunities that were
both alike and unlike any other writing experiences that I’ve had before. For example, I ran
Domi Station’s social media platforms and I found that writing fun and informative social media
posts and captions was actually a whole lot like writing discussion board posts for classes. I read
the content that was going to be posted and I would pick out key points or point out an
interesting quote from the piece that would attract our followers to read the content. Sometimes I
would even caption a post with a question regarding the content to open up discussion with Domi
Station’s audience. In class, I would typically go through the same motions when it came time to
write a discussion board post, so it was interesting to see those two converge.

Although there were similarities, I also noticed plenty of differences between my writing
for class and my writing for my internship with Domi Station. Domi’s brand is generally very
fun, bubbly, casual, and informative, so the majority of my writing for social media posts was
conversational and included an occasional emoji when warranted! Usually, my writing for
classes is very structured and research-based in order to maintain a scholarly tone. There were
also times during my internship when my writing did have to maintain a more professional tone,
like when I wrote press releases or emails to news sources. Additionally, when the Coronavirus
pandemic hit, I had to refine the Domi’s social media presence to become more informational
and serious in tone in order to be sensitive to our audience of entrepreneurs and small business
owners who were struggling.

When it comes to my definition of writing, it’s become pretty broad since the conclusion
of my internship with Domi Station. I consider writing to be any form of written word that is
aimed at informing or stimulating the mind. At the start of this internship, I was very worried
about not being able to meet the word count because my main responsibility was to post on
social media instead of writing long-form blogposts or lengthy newsletters. I didn’t realize how
much copy goes into social media posts especially when there’s a brand to upkeep and a hungry
audience to keep at bay. Moreover, I have come to find that social media as a writing platform is
a great way of engaging people and there are many ways to entice your audience to click on the
content that you’re providing or promoting. Just because a piece of writing is short and sweet
doesn’t mean that time and thought was not put into it. This internship truly taught me to get
creative with a limited word count. For example, on Twitter, I would only have 140 characters to
draw my audience in and even less if I included a link to an article!

While I had a fairly structured day-to-day schedule of work, but there was always room
for a new project or challenge to pop up and I think that enhanced my ability to multitask,
organize, and communicate with my peers and supervisors effectively. When any of our
entrepreneurs suddenly had a breakthrough or won a grant for their company, it was my job to
celebrate it on social media. When Domi Station finalized their partnership with Tresta, it was
my duty to immediately spread the word to our media list in the form of a press release. Being on
top of my daily responsibilities made it easy to jump from one project to another. One instance
that was particularly unexpected was the Coronavirus pandemic. While everyone has been
affected in some way, Domi Station, its entrepreneurs, and its small businessowners were hit
really hard. In a difficult time for so many, I had to pivot as a communications strategist and
develop a new communications strategy with my supervisor that would be helpful, sensitive,
informative, and valuable to our members in order to keep them on board with Domi Station. We
switched up our social media presence to become an informational hub of well-researched
resources for financial aid, updates on Coronavirus, innovations, and any other uplifting and
inspiring information. On top of that, my professionality and work ethic were tested as I had to
adjust to remote work, virtual staff meetings, and all online communication. Luckily, I had a
great team of flexible, resourceful, and innovative coworkers who continuously challenged me to
make Domi Station’s communication better and better especially in a time of crisis.

In light of all of this, I plan to apply everything that I have learned at Domi Station to my
post-grad job as a communications specialist with FedEx. Domi Station has taught me to focus
my writing to appeal to an audience that is mainly made up of entrepreneurs, and I think that will
carry over well into my next position. Writing copy and captions for social media does not seem
like much work from the outside, but I have learned that a lot of responsibility comes with
speaking to such a large audience and I now believe I have the confidence to do so effectively.