A summer as a BigPanda intern

This summer, I had the privilege of participating in a six-week internship in the marketing department at BigPanda. My role was as a social media specialist intern on the content strategy team. Before this internship, my marketing experience was limited to classwork at the University of Delaware and managing Instagram and TikTok for a small retail business. Additionally, I’m an external philanthropy director for my sorority, Alpha Xi Delta, where I organize and oversee large volunteer events involving other Greek life organizations.

As part of my internship, I had the unique opportunity to interview BigPanda co-workers from different teams, including product marketing, public relations, social media, demand generation, web operations, digital/content marketing, and field marketing. I also connected with sales development representatives (SDRs) to get more perspective about their roles. Each conversation gave me valuable insights into their day-to-day responsibilities at BigPanda and their journeys into marketing or sales. These interactions greatly expanded my knowledge of the diverse roles and the skills required to succeed in each.

Throughout my internship, I developed a wide range of new skills and knowledge, particularly in business-to-business (B2B) and digital marketing. One of my main projects involved researching the DevOps audience, focusing on their roles, interests, demographics, and preferred social media platforms. This research enabled me to answer key questions about the audience and how BigPanda can more effectively engage with them. I analyzed how BigPanda competitors target the DevOps audience by evaluating their web pages, reviewing their content, and analyzing their social presence on platforms like LinkedIn, podcasts, YouTube, Reddit, and X.

Based on my research, I identified the main topics the DevOps audience cares about and proposed ways to reach them more effectively.

I also researched and created social media content. Each week brought new and varied projects. I worked with my manager, read about industry best practices, and listened to podcasts to learn about more ways to promote content. I also researched best practices for YouTube and worked on improving descriptions, titles, and transcripts to make them more interesting to our target audiences and ease translation for global viewers.

This internship has been an incredible experience, providing me with practical skills and a deeper understanding of marketing, more specifically, in B2B marketing and content creation. These hands-on projects allowed me to apply the knowledge I learned in my marketing class into real-world scenarios, and guidance from experienced professionals helped me develop new skills.

I have learned immensely about the importance of brand voice, how to adapt my writing style to fit BigPanda’s brand, and how to target the tech audience. I also learned the importance of audience research, content creation strategies, and effective communication in marketing.

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to BigPanda’s marketing efforts. I am excited to continue growing in this field as I return to my studies at the University of Delaware in the fall. I look forward to applying what I learned from this internship in my future career!

Maddie Serembus is a junior at the University of Delaware, majoring in marketing with a minor in professional selling and sales.