3 Ways an Intern Can Help You Reach College Students

Do you have a product or service that is perfect for college students, but lack the best way to market to this audience? Here is some simple advice: why not ask one of them?

College students need internships, and hiring a college student intern to help you with marketing to this audience is a win-win situation for a student and your company. Here are three ways an intern can help you reach your desired audience.

1. College interns speak the language.

Why reinvent the wheel? College students already speak the language of the demographic you are targeting, so consider creating one or two college internship positions for members of that audience. College interns are in large supply, as 80 percent of students intern at least once in college and 50 percent intern twice or more, according to a blog post on Kissmetrics.com. Students seek out internships year-round and are always looking for opportunities to share their knowledge.

Because college students know other college students, have your college intern run a blog for your company that will be of interest to their peers. Interns can pick topics college students would relate to and relate these topics to your products and services. Or, have your interns help you come up with the perfect marketing language to target students. This will be a great experience for your intern and leave you with a helpful, targeted product to model when your intern leaves.

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2. College interns can spread the word.

Texting, tweeting, talking in class: college interns are always connected to their peers through a variety of platforms, both online and offline. Turn your intern into a sort of brand representative and encourage them to discuss your products and services with their peers. Your interns can practice their marketing skills by creating flyers and digital media projects about your organization or company to share with their campus. Students can also take some time to make announcements about your company and product during class, as long as it is relevant to their peers.

Interns love and crave real world experience, so the more projects you can give them (within reason, of course), the better! Interns can create public service announcements, videos, memes, press releases, and more that target college students in order to help spread the word about your company and what you stand for. Using the language of the college student and spreading the word about you, interns will work hard to make sure students know who you are.

3. College interns know social media.

Does your company or organization have social media accounts? Social media is one of the best ways to reach the college student market, as most college students are on at least one type of social media. An article from Modo Labs claimed about 90 percent of young adults used social media in 2015, a 78 percent increase from the 12 percent using social media back in 2005. A Pew study found 82 percent of students use Facebook and about 55 percent use Instagram. Twitter attracts approximately 32 percent of students.

So, what does all of this online usage mean for you? It means if you are not on social media you are missing out on a large chunk of your target audience. College interns can help you set up new social media accounts and share content that is meaningful and fun for their peers. Or, they can transform your current social media accounts into lively, interactive pages that college students will flock to. Regardless, giving an intern some time to play around with your company’s social media sites could help you better target your audience.

So, get out there and recruit an intern to get some firsthand college student perspective. Their first project? Write the perfect targeted press release to submit to UWire.com!