Megan Shields

I was typically the only sales associate on the register for my given shift (the morning/afternoon shift). I also had to simultaneously watch the register while stocking the Dollar General shelves; each day we had a "goal" of getting a specific number and type of shipment onto the shelves by the end of each shift.

The duties of the CMT Marketing Internship at ZooTampa at Lowry Park has several objectives, and has been structured to assist in gaining practical knowledge and experience in the areas of marketing and sales. There are five specific objectives that correspond to this position; the first being to conduct grassroots marketing to deliver and present the latest information to properties that partner with ZooTampa, such as hotels and restaurants around the area. The second objective is to represent ZooTampa as an ambassador at trade shows and local events, such as at the Florida Bridal & Wedding Expo (showcasing our weddings at the Zoo). The third objective is to determine projects for the Zoo, such as charity event ideas, new route projects, seeking out new route opportunities, website edits, in-park signage, and any other thoughtful ideas. The fourth objective is to conduct research and shadow another department within the business to expand marketing knowledge, where my supervisor would aid in upcoming deliverables. Finally, the fifth objective is to assist, plan and coordinate operations of special events held by the Zoo, such as our weekly Toddler Tuesday event, ZooBrews Festival, or Zoo & BBQ.

I worked on an independent research study with Dr. Jennifer Burton as my faculty advisor. Our research seeks to develop and validate a coding scheme to help managers content analyze the image-based, as opposed to text-based, aspects of a company’s social media posts. Content analysis, as performed today, is very text-dependent with software running word counts of the specific words and word types (e.g. words that convey positive versus negative emotion) that appear most frequently on a company’s social media posts. These word counts then provide managers information about what is being talked about and how consumers evaluate the content of their posts. While text analysis can reveal many insights regarding social media strategies, a limitation is that so much content and context is revealed through imagery on social media. In fact, two of the most popular social media sites with more than 3 billion active users combined, Instagram and YouTube, are primarily visual media with posts containing much more imagery than text content. Research is needed to better understand what aspects of social media imagery are important in generating user engagement. The present research addresses this gap and identifies 27 different dimensions of social media imagery that are predicted to drive user engagement such as the number of likes, comments and shares on social media. This project analyzes 450 Instagram posts on the identified dimensions and hopes to demonstrate inter-rater reliability between coders to validate the coding scheme and seeks to demonstrate a link with important user engagement behaviors to demonstrate the usefulness of this coding scheme to social media managers.

Proficient in Google Analytics software, with a certification for this software.

Proficient in Microsoft Office applications.