Collecting Content as a Content Marketer

Have you ever seen the K-drama Startup? It’s a unique piece of K-content centering around Bae Suzy (Miss A’s Bae Suzy) as she aspires to build a virtual reality company from the ground up. In the show, she markets content, providing a unique product and winning over investors with her suave charm. Working at DIOKOS is… not like that at all. It’s the first internship I’ve ever had, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work in such a unique environment. But what does it mean to market content? I am not as talented as Bae Suzy, but to an extent, we played the same role for a while. Netflix dramas aside, this is what it means to be a content marketer at a start-up company in Seoul.

The following is the most professional and dramatic rendition of the duties of a content marketer. A content marketer plans, creates and distributes content to attract and convert prospects into customers. The planning and distribution of content sounds about right, but aside from all the professional mumbo-jumbo, the details of content marketing can vary from company to company. DIOKOS is a premier human resource and public relations firm specializing in international communications. KoreaAgain, the branch where I market content, is the startup under the DIOKOS umbrella and markets specifically to students and foreigners looking to understand aspects of Korean culture. Our goal is to create revenue around South Korea’s rapid globalization. That’s our audience, and we interns are the audience. So what kind of content would we want to see? My duty is to explore Seoul and collect audio, video, and photo. These places can be nooks and crannies – abject holes in metropolitan walls or massive landmarks attracting anyone between 8 and 78. With my content. I return to the office, marketing the content as advertisements, articles, fliers, websites, social media stills, reels, Linkedin posts, etc.

To market this content, we spread the word to our audience. I begin the day by liking posts on DIOKOS’s social media. I connect with a few people on Linkedin (potentially you: the prospective reader), connect them to DIOKOS, and go right on with my day. Advertisements must sell a product to a consumer, so we brainstorm what the consumer would want to see out of the content we create. There is no limit on what we can do, and we look to Danny for consultation and advice about how our projects should proceed. At that point, open up Premiere and get editing. Use the A-roll collected during my travels, cut up B-roll and stills, and add a professional but youthful touch to my work. I find some royalty-free music or video clips to cover the gaps in content and crank out a 30-second ad for my employer – which I will later pitch to him for revisions. This is the cycle of my work. To some degree, I feel like a YouTuber working for a startup company, but with the luxury of being an intrepid explorer and editor on the side.

Bae Suzy, I am coming for your crown. If you wondered what a content marketer does, it’s not the lavish lifestyle portrayed on TV. It’s lax, flexible, and trendy. From digital marketing to content creation and editing, leaving a content marketing internship will give you a better understanding of how to start-up your own start-up.