Lore

Blue Ion: An Intern Story

Picture this. It’s 12:30 am on a Saturday night. Lights are flashing as bright as the sun and the bass coming from the DJ’s speakers could be felt from your fingertips down to your toes. The loud, crowded bar I was standing in just minutes didn’t seem so crowded anymore but it was just as loud, maybe louder. That’s when I realize what had happened. I look up and find myself in the middle of a dance circle surrounded by about twenty people, half familiar faces and the others strangers. With a Bud Light in my left hand and my iPhone in the right, It was my turn to dance. I was hoping that I would be able to bust out my classic move I like to call “point and shoot” where I unholster my hands from my pocket, point around the circle, blow the fumes from the smoking guns, and return my hands back to the holster, but to my surprise the previous dancer had just done the move and this time I wasn’t the pointer, I was the pointee. In a panic, I ruffle through the catalog of disco era dances I store in my brain and one stood out. Travolta’s finger point to the sky from Saturday Night Fever. Perfect.

        I’m ready to go. I have my move, my friends, and some liquid courage all by my side. I wait for the perfect beat to do the legendary point. I count, one…two…as my hand goes down and across body to my hip and then three! I complete the Travolta point as my finger soars to the sky…along with my iPhone. A bittersweet moment to say the least. I watch my pristine $600 dollar piece of metal glide through the air and land face down on the ground

The phone is shattered and so am I. The next day, as people are on jogging their morning route and enjoying their egg white omelettes, I shuffle down King Street with a Gatorade in my left hand and my iPhone in the right. I pull up to the Apple store and look up. I think to myself “WOW, that’s a pretty sweet apartment. I bet the guy who lives up there would get the Travolta point first try.” And that’s how I discovered Blue Ion.

        At the end of the first semester of the College of Charleston MBA program, our marketing professors had the students take a survey and give feedback on what we would be interested in learning about during the semester to come. Everything we have done up to this point had been the classic marketing stuff that has been around forever. Stuff like the 4 P’s, target markets, SWOT analyses, blah blah. However, we have never done anything that, in this day and age, we see every day on our phones, computers, etc. so a digital marketing class was set up. During this semester, I got extremely interest in Google AdWords, Facebook Business Manager, and other platforms that allow companies to not only advertise online but that back marketing performance with numbers. I found it fascinating and wanted to dive deeper but didn’t know how to do it on my own, so I reached out to Blue Ion. After meeting with Chris and Hailey a few times, Blue Ion offered me an internship, and I was ecstatic.

        Interning at Blue Ion has been an unbelievably fantastic experience. Being here, I’ve learned the technical and analytical side of things, like building reports and looking for patterns in search queries but also the creative side, like seeing how a website is designed and built from scratch. I not only loved being able to continue with my interest in digital media, but I also loved seeing how a company goes through an entire process before they start thinking about spending on paid search. The people at Blue Ion could not be any nicer and friendlier. I could ask anyone a question about anything, and although I felt like I was being annoying sometimes, I was reassured that I was not and it showed I was curious. What blows me away about Blue Ion is how talented everyone is at what they do, whether it be Hailey boosting website conversions, Tyler sketching stunning logos, or Jenny writing a piece that makes bread (literally bread – http://www.signaturebreads.com) seem interesting. Being here I realized that I want my career path to be the perfect mix of creative and analytical and that I need to work in a laidback, open environment like Blue Ion. I wouldn’t trade the opportunity to intern at Blue Ion for anything and everything that everyone has done for me has been extremely appreciated. I hope to keep in touch and maybe even work with everyone I have met along the way. Thank you to everyone, it has been a blast!