A Day in the Life Blog: Natalie Chapman, Marketing Intern

Welcome to our blog series, ‘A Day in the Life…’ which features a member of the CMP team and what they get up to on a typical day at work. This time we’re featuring Natalie, a recent addition to the team as Marketing Intern. Read on for more about how Natalie has found her first few months at Cornwall Museums Partnership.

After a long month sat at home during lockdown 2.0 eagerly anticipating the start of my first full time job, I was equal parts nervous and excited to join the CMP team at the beginning of December. Earlier in the year I had completed my BA in Classics at the University of Cambridge during the first lockdown, meaning sadly I graduated remotely from my living room sofa without getting to say goodbye to the city and friends I had come to love! Needless to say, I was ready for a fresh start and this internship at CMP was the perfect opportunity for me to begin my working career (and 2021) with some positivity.

My first week in the office rushed by in a whirlwind of zoom meetings, introductions to the team and getting my head around CMP’s staggering number of partners and projects! It’s fair to say I was rather overwhelmed at first, especially as only myself and my line manager Jody were coming into the office, meaning I have only met most of the team remotely. Now of course, with the start of the third lockdown, I too am working from home full time – a prospect I would have found incredibly daunting without those initial two weeks in the office beforehand!

My role as Marketing Intern covers a wide array of duties, but I primarily spend my time running the CMP social media channels – Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I have taken over the reins on this from Jody, who has been so generous with her time in showing me the ropes, especially when it comes to using social media from a business perspective – the inner workings of analytics, hashtag audits and paid promotions have been a real learning curve for me. One of my first tasks was to create a six-week social media content planner, full of ideas for future content for me to create and schedule in advance. My favourite part of this process is definitely designing graphics on Canva – I love anything creative, so this kind of work feels more like play to me! Currently I’m planning a number of exciting social media collaborations, including a takeover with Queer Kernow to mark LGBT+ History Month coming up in February!

Aside from social media, I also regularly update the CMP website; send out monthly newsletters and produce fortnightly blogs. Thus, my typical day at work is comprised of scrolling and re-sharing on social media, copywriting, hilarious zoom team meetings, copious amounts of tea and scheduling on Tweetdeck. Now that I’m working from home I also like to take a daily nature walk to clear my head – the best time for this is golden hour so I can catch the beautiful Falmouth sunrise! After nearly two months, I have already come to love this role, which grants me the privilege of communicating to the world all the amazing work that CMP undertakes and the huge impact our charity has.

Looking back, the highlight of my CMP experience so far has got to be the staff Christmas lunch – although we couldn’t celebrate as normal this year, each member of the team received a beautiful Cornish hamper full of goodies to enjoy over a zoom lunch together, complete with festive jumpers, Christmas quiz and secret Santa presents!

Now that my training and introductory period is out of the way, I’m eager to get stuck into this role and grow as much as possible over the next 7 months – there are so many opportunities for learning from my amazing team members and CMP’s partner projects! I’m particularly looking forward to observing the Citizen Curators scheme, assisting Jody with the CMP re-brand and helping out with our Black Voices for Cornwall collaboration – plus hopefully I’ll actually be able to visit our partner museums in the Spring!

If you’d like to get in touch I’m always open to suggestions for content (be it for the CMP social media channels, newsletter or blog) and collaborations so feel free to contact me at: natalie@cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk.

 

– Natalie Chapman, Marketing Intern