Emilie Ackerman

People entering entertainment marketing are always looking for ways to meet the needs and objectives of a movie or television show, to reach its goals and target audience. This is why project management is very important. Depending on what exactly you work on when it comes to entertainment marketing, the way you organize a project can look different, so it might require a different kind of thinking, but the foundation is the same.

When completing work for my social media and for Girls’ Life Magazine, I currently use my notes app or Google Sheets to stay organized. Since I work on my young entertainment social media on my own, I mainly take mental notes on the notes app on my phone. For Girls’ Life Magazine, I fill out a Google Sheets spreadsheet of the tasks I have completed to stay organized. Looking at what I do now, I think there are better ways I can stay organized, especially with my social media.

Since my work involves independent and team-based projects, I apply agile and design thinking in everything I do. On social media, I reflect on what posts worked and did not work on certain social media platforms and why, so they will work better next time. I also ask myself: Did my content align with my target audience? Is what I am talking about interesting enough to make people stop scrolling and watch my content? For design aspects, when I use Canva, Photoshop, or Premiere I ask myself: Are my graphics visually appealing enough to my audience?  Do my videos capture their attention at the beginning with an image or text on the screen? Did I include captions on my video? These things are important, as these are the things people see or hear that make people stop scrolling to watch my videos.

Since these are questions I am always thinking about, and I like the way my internship uses Google Sheets to organize things, I decided that setting up a Google Sheet where I keep track of the posts’ engagement would be helpful. This way, I can keep track of each of my posts’ analytics so I can clearly see what is working for my content and what isn’t. This is a lot more helpful than consistently just going back to the TikTok app to check them. To make sure I followed through on this, I actually set it up in Google Sheets like this:

I made separate tabs for each social media platform: Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok. I also organized the tabs into the titles of the videos I post, likes, views, shares, and followers gained. I am also thinking of putting a comments tab so I can reflect on each of my videos, and making a Google Drive folder for all of my graphics and videos.

Just by doing this, I already feel a lot more organized when it comes to doing my social media. In some ways, I think this sheet will improve my confidence overtime. By seeing each posts analytics on Google Sheets, I can effectively problem solve and help my posts do better. Seeing their performance improve overtime I know will reassure me that I am taking my content in the right direction. Also, by including time stamps of when each post was uploaded, it can help me keep of making sure I am keep a good work/life balance as I can sometimes I can get too caught up in my work especially as I am balancing completing a master’s, creating my content, and doing my Girls’ Life Magazine internship. This process has shown me that project management isn’t just about staying on top of tasks—it’s about learning, adapting, and growing in a fast-paced industry. Overall this process has definitely taught me how to better be an entertainment marketing professional.