Where Work and Personal Lives Blur

Determined Marketing Intern Striving to Enhance a Companys Brand through Social Media

Michael Piccirilli
Communications 495 Internship

FULTON SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS

Salisbury University

Emerging social media platforms change the way we work and communicate in the
corporate world, offering new ways to engage with customers, colleagues, and the world as a
whole. These personas (the balance between the corporate world and personal lives) come
together in a public manner in social media. All my life, I have been a social media guru, always
managing and maintaining the latest social media platforms. However, my experience with these
social media platforms was always for personal use rather than focusing on the competencies it
provides for the corporate world. Social media today is allowing companies to effectively market
their corporate brand as well as their employees/thought leaders. With the millennial generation
emerging in the business force, social media is being leveraged for new patterns of
communication, to network and to stay connected in a business network. Throughout my
internship at Lindenmeyr Munroe, the company strived to enhance business results by
introducing emerging social media platforms to their sales representatives as well as
administrators. With my previous knowledge of social media platforms in addition to my
internship experience of how companies aim to heighten their brand, I have realized how
essential innovative social media tools such as LinkedIn are to an older generation company.
During my position at Lindenmeyr Munroe, I have evaluated the before, during, and after
processes of the companys adjustment to emerging social media platforms, specifically
LinkedIn.
In the past two months, I have been the marketing intern for Lindenmeyr Munroe, a
package and paper distributing company based in Hanover, MD. With their industry reputation
for financial stability and a portfolio of premium diverse products, Lindenmeyr Munroe has been
the leading distributer in the United States with their best-in-class service. For many decades,
Lindenmeyr has the reputation in the industry as farmers for creating leads through the
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management of existing accounts and relationships. A farmer in the corporate world is a sales
representative that creates and maintains relationships with existing accounts within their field
instead of hunting for new clients. The sales representative simply nurtures their relationship and
turns their bond with the account into a long-term connection. This technique usually begins by
word-of-mouth, an ongoing verbal transaction between two parties about a product or service,
ultimately branching to other parties about that product or service.
Before Lindenmeyr Munroe was introduced to LinkedIn Premium, the sales
representatives managed their client accounts and created new leads through limited channels.
The process begins with existing accounts that Lindenmeyr currently holds. A sale representative
will present a new product to that account (printing businesses, hospitals, schools, government
agencies) from existing paper mill companies that Lindenmeyr has built long-term relationships
with. For example, Lindenmeyr Munroe has a long-standing relationship with a paper mill
organization, Verso. Verso will present innovative products that Lindenmeyr buys in bulk with
the goal of selling to their client account. While this approach has been a proven success, it is
challenging for sales representatives to create new leads. A majority of these new leads are
generated from cold calls. Cold calls are simply calling an anonymous employee to create a
potential relationship with. This process labels the sales representative as a hunter which is
classified for those individuals tasked with finding new business leads in the market. The success
rate of cold calling fluctuates as a few of the sales representatives at Lindenmeyr Munroe have a
high success rate with cold calling for new leads whereas many struggle with it. Others refrain
from this practice altogether and focus on farming the accounts they have already had for years.
With the emergence of the millennial generation into the workforce, sale representatives,
formerly farmers and hunters have begun adapting to the innovative technologies that are now
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available in the market. In my previous marketing class, Advertising and Promotion with
Professor Paula T. Morris, I have obtained hands-on experience with using social media
platforms for one of our projects. Professor Morris strived to make the class as real as possible
by providing practical skills in the classroom. Our class was given the option to choose which
social media platform we wanted to use to create a blog that puts out weekly posts of a product
or service. From my prior knowledge and classroom experience with social media platforms, my
internship focused on educating the Lindenmeyr Munroe sales organization on how to operate
and drive business results through the LinkedIn platform.
Lindenmeyr Munroe was very eager to get the process going with LinkedIns premium
account. However, the first step in getting the sales organization acclimated with LinkedIn was to
take inventory of those representatives with LinkedIn profiles. After meeting with many of the
sale representatives, it was determined that less than half had been introduced to the social media
platform and those that did have an account were not properly using it. Similarly, many of the
sale representatives were challenged with building new leads. Those representatives with
LinkedIn accounts had difficulties identifying the correct person that they should be
corresponding with in addition to not have the upgraded Sales Navigator premium account. I
researched the Sales Navigator premium account in LinkedIn, ultimately to promote it to my
supervisor along with other Lindenmeyr operations in the East Coast regions. I got on the phone
with a consultant from LinkedIn, Mickey Defilippo, to inquire about some of the features offered
through this account level. He went over the features the premium account has to offer then
scheduled a conference call with their account executive to go over a live demo of the product
with my supervisors. The live demo went over the Sales Navigator product and showed our team
features that included how to create leads through advance searching an employee and what
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position they currently hold. Overall, the live-demo conference call was a success considering
our team was very satisfied on what the product had to offer in addition to learning new ways to
create leads for the sale representatives.
Our team then discussed how many premium account licenses were going to be
distributed throughout each of the Lindenmeyr regions and the privileges it comes with. My
supervisor and I decided the licenses we give out will consist of a tool to help sale
representatives that are struggling to get their sale numbers up along with a tool to assist sale
representatives that already know how to operate LinkedIn. If the employees that are given the
Sales Navigator licenses do not use them to their benefit, then the licenses will be handed to
other employees for a better use. Lindenmeyr Munroe wants to ensure that their teams are using
the premium product to their fullest capabilities because the products annual price is very
expensive. In order for the sale representatives to use the product fully, they must understand
how to create an account along with use the features it provides to prospect companies and make
connections. I provided the sale representatives my PowerPoint presentation, LinkedIn Overview
Presentation; to ensure all the employees had the knowledge to operate their account on their
own. After each of the employees had a copy of the LinkedIn Overview Presentation, I met with
each sale representative that needed additional assistance setting up their LinkedIn account in
addition to operating it. After a week or so, the sales representatives that were assigned a license
for LinkedIn premium were up to speed and ready to drive business results.
After Lindenmeyr Munroe was acclimated to LinkedIn premium, the sale representatives
have benefited from the tools that this emerging social media platform has to offer. Previously,
the biggest issue that the sale representatives have been dealing with in LinkedIn was
prospecting specific employees in a certain company. For example, the sale representatives
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would search for the purchasing manager at ABC Company but could not find who they were
because a basic LinkedIn account does not offer those features. One of the companies that our
team was prospecting was Transamerica in addition to Erie Insurance. With the prospecting
feature that the premium account offers, we were allowed access to advance search any
employee within those two companies. This feature also provides suggestions such as other
employees that relate to who you are searching for. After finding the employees the sales
representatives were prospecting, they could now can create virtual leads by receiving updates on
that prospect and their company. For example, the sale representatives can keep up with essential
information such as title changes in the companies they are prospecting. This is very essential to
Lindenmeyr Munroe because each sale representative has a mailing list that provides key
information (attendees, titles, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) on each account that
Lindenmeyr has done business with. I handled each and every one of the sale representatives
mailing lists, ensuring that the information on each of the accounts were up-to-date. With the
update feature that LinkedIn premium provides, the sale representatives sent me the updates to
which I made the changes for their mailing sheets. My supervisor wanted to put in addition
material to the mailing list that LinkedIn premium did not provide. Some of this information
included what type of equipment these companies were using. Since this was new material to add
to the mailing list, it brought a lot of confusion between the sale representatives, my supervisor,
and me. The only form of communication was via email to talk about the equipment section in
the mailing list which was the main source of my personal disappointment. However, I learned
from my mistakes and started to meet with the sale associates one-on-one to go over their
equipment sections.

All in all, this social media platform has been nothing but beneficial to a company that is
operated by baby-boomers. With millennial generation emerging, LinkedIn premium has been
one of the first steps to overlap the process of being a famer in the corporate world, to a hunter.
My overall experience interning at Lindenmeyr Munroe has been an eye-opener for what
my passion is in the corporate world. The experience I had dealing with sale representatives and
making connections with other company representatives was truly inspiring. However, the paper
industry in which I was interning in did not grab my attention as to what I want to do for the rest
of my employment career. My knowledge for how printing businesses operate on a daily basis is
very proficient considering my former summer employment has been at Doyle Printing, my
familys printing business that has currently ran for over 80 years. However, I want to branch out
of the printing atmosphere and obtain marketing experience in what my one true love is, which is
hockey. Tying my passion for hockey along with creating connections with my communication
and marketing skills is truly inspiring to my future career path.
As this internship concludes, I plan to further gain experience with an internship with the
local professional hockey team, the Washington Capitals. I previously applied for their internship
that was opened up in the summer of 2016. As their policy was to take one applicant for the
internship, I did not receive the position. My goal is to surpass last years accomplishment of
being in their top five for applicants until I obtain the position. My passion to someday work for
the Washington Capitals marketing department is inspiring because the occupation is the perfect
mixture of what my one true love is and what Im experienced at. From the wise words of former
business executive, Jack Welch, he stated control your own destiny or someone else will. This
statement stuck to me after finishing my internship with Lindenmeyr Munroe, realizing the drive
it takes to pursue your passion rather than sitting back and have someone control your career
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path. Simply put, hockey is my one true love. To find an opportunity that marries hockey and
marketing communications would be a dream come true.