Well, the honeymoon phase of this internship – which has consisted of me sitting in my executive suite, watching pilot series – is officially over. It’s time to get down to business. At the beginning of the week, my supervisor, Rick, emailed me about a meeting with Amy and Brandon of the Digital Media Programming department to discuss “projects” for the summer. I wasn’t entirely clear on what these so-called “projects” would entail but I had a feeling it meant that they actually expect me to start working around here.
On the bright side, I figured the added responsibilities would lead to a promotion – or maybe a massage chair for my office. What’s that, you say? Summer interns don’t get promotions? I’ll keep my fingers crossed for the chair.
As I made my way to my meeting with Amy and Brandon, anxiety began to set in. The CW has always been on the cutting edge of digital media. Sure, I’m acquainted with digital media – I use Facebook and Gmail; I have a digital camera; I even download apps on my iPhone! But when it comes to using these platforms in the context of marketing a national network, I’m out of my depth.
It turns out my anxiety was misplaced. Amy and Brandon explained that my summer projects are in fact concentrated on social media – i.e. the stuff I understand. According to Amy, their primary focus when the network launched was cwtv.com. Over the years, however, that focus has somewhat shifted to developing a strong social media presence. In Brandon’s words: “we want to be where the fans are.” In recent years, this thinking has led to a CW Network Facebook page, Facebook pages for individual shows, and a CW twitter.
In addition to my cwtv.com blog, I’ll be keeping track of the most influential tweeters on the web, as well as working with the Integrated Marketing team in NYC to develop digital media promo ideas like cool mobile apps promoting new shows.
My most recent project is populating the newly created CW Network tumblr. If you haven’t checked out tumblr yet, I recommend you do so ASAP – that is, unless you have a job. If, like me, your job actually necessitates perusing tumblr for hours on end, well then, tumble on! Otherwise, you may find that the site hinders your daily productivity. You’ve been warned – it’s the most addictive advent since Angry Birds.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, tumblr lets you post text, photos, quotes, music, videos…basically anything. The content can be original or “reblogged” from another tumblr.
I’ve started “following” the tumblr’s of CW fans to find unique material to post on the official CW page. The pictures and videos that people post are amazing. The amount of creativity that’s evident in every fan post speaks volumes about the devotion of CW viewers. Fans photoshop pictures of their favorite characters from CW shows to add color effects and captions, or to put a series of photos together.
Fans also create original GIF files – that stands for Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). In computer terms, a GIF is a bitmap image format. In Eva terms, it’s a mini animated clip. Some of the clips are hilarious and I’m continually impressed by what people come up with.
Check it out! Make some of your own photoshopped images or GIF’s, post it on your tumblr page, tag #the cw and the specific show the image is from (like #the secret circle), and maybe I’ll reblog it on the official CW tumblr. Here’s a few of my favorite posts I’ve reblogged recently.
Alright, enough blogging for today – gotta tumble.
- Eva Gurfein