Over the course of my internship here in Stockholm, I have had to structure the majority of my projects and work due to the small size and structure of my company. Many of my tasks have been delegated to myself, by myself. Because that is the case, I have to work on existing skills and develop new ones on the fly.
During my time here, I have worked on some preexisting skills that I brought to the company. One of my roles here is content creation. I had a previous internship where content creation was one of my main tasks. Because of that internship, I was able to gain some experience with Canva, creating various different kinds of media. This current internship has allowed me to get some more experience with the platform and dive deeper into what the platform has to offer. I used to be under the impression that Canva was not a coveted skill, but after seeing how important it is to content creation and some more conversations with my mentors, one of which being a CEO that uses Canva on a regular basis, I realize that it is a very important skill that is crucial to how companies advertise and create content for their platforms.
In an age where artificial intelligence is becoming more and more prevalent, it has certainly made its way into the digital marketing and content creation space. I have had to get used to using artificial intelligence for content creation in multiple different ways. Whether it be image generation or editing, I have used it for both. Yes, artificial intelligence does the bulk of the work when I use it here, but it can become increasingly frustrating when I prompt it to create an image and it spits out something so far from what I was looking for. Learning to provide it with correct and highly specific prompts was difficult at first, but has only gotten easier as time has passed.
A skill that I have had to start teaching myself from the time I got here was link tracking using a website called, “AppsFlyer.” The company has had an AppsFlyer account for some time now, but had never bothered to use it or learn how the platform works. Because of that, I was totally on my own as far as learning the platform. Upon asking for some help on how to use it, I was told that I was the “primary authority” when it comes to AppsFlyer, meaning that I was the most knowledgeable about it. This was a little scary considering I had no idea what I was doing. However, through many YouTube videos, Reddit posts, and technical support tickets, I was able to teach myself how to use it for the purposes of what we needed it for.
One of the softer skills that I have had to work on here is communication. The Swedes communicate differently than we do back in the states. In the states we use include lots of unnecessary information in our communication whether it be to come across more professional, soft launch some kind of proposal, or to offer an insincere praise. Here in Sweden, the communication is far more streamlined and to the point. This was a big adjustment for at first because the feed back I would receive came off as dissatisfied or like something was wrong. However, after about a week, I realized that communication style here is strictly to the point. I learned that it is not how things are said that matters in the professional world, but rather what is being said.
