Put Your Summer Interns to Work on Social Media Projects

• The find: A social-media research project could be a great way to get the most out of your summer interns.
• The Source: DISRUPTology, a blog by social media consultant Aaron Uhrmacher.

You probably don't want to an intern blogging on behalf of your company. But an intern can tackle much of the social media grunt work, and probably have a valuable learning experience while doing so. Here are ten ways your summer intern can deliver more than fresh coffee to the communications team:

1. Social Media Overviews: Instruct each intern to create a 30 minute presentation on the social media platform of his/her choice that includes an overview, how its used and how your business might participate.

2. Competitive Analysis: Ask an intern to build a full social media profile analysis of a competitor or client. This might include what platforms they use, how they participate and some metrics do determine how they are successful.

3. Account creation/customization: Allow them to create and populate some of your executive's social media accounts. Then, set up some time for the intern to teach the executive about the platform. (NOTE: the intern should not participate on behalf of the executive).
4. (Social) Media Research: Which social media platforms are your main media contacts using? Are they blogging? Using Twitter? Do they want to be contacted through any of these by your company?

5. Template creation: If your intern knows Photoshop or another design program, it might be fun to have him/her create customized templates for your firm's Twitter pages or a logo/avatar for your company's employees.

6. RSS building: If you've never taken the time to set up an RSS reader to monitor social media activity around your brand, your client or your industry, this is an awesome task for an intern. Once it's set up, though, you have to use it!

7. Blog monitoring: There are hundreds of millions of blogs, and probably hundreds that reference your brand or industry. Your intern can conduct research and report back about the most important blogs in your niche.

8. Blogging: Have interns post about their experiences on your internal or external blog. Not only will it showcase another side to your company, namely that you're empowering your interns, but it also provides your team with important feedback about the internship.

9. Web Analysis: When it comes to e-commerce, usability and design, most web savvy college age students have seen their fair share of websites. Invite your intern to provide an in-depth analysis of your corporate site. A fresh set of eyes from your target demographic might be useful.

10. Video: Editing images and video are important new media skills. Your interns could record a few interviews with executives. Even if they're not perfect, the point of an internship is to learn, and these are already proven skills that will benefit both the intern and the company.

Photo by Flickr user "adpowers," CC 2.0.