For my JLMC 499 Internship at Iowa State University, I completed a 400-hour summer internship with Maximum Ames at the Iowa Music Store in Ames, Iowa from May to July 2015. While my bachelor’s degree is in English and Journalism & Mass Communications, my internship involved public relations and business communication, management of the Iowa Music Store, social media advertising and posting as well as networking in the Ames, Ankeny and Des Moines area. (See screenshot samples and links to my work as an intern below.)
*Press release writing: Maximum Ames Music Festival Press Release
Here is a press release I wrote for Maximum Ames. I sent it out to potential sponsors for the Sept. 10-13, 2015, Maximum Ames Music Festival. The document was also sent to subscribers of the Maximum Ames MailChimp newsletter site.
I wrote a press release for the Maximum Ames Music Festival concert lineup. This document was sent via Mail Chimp to Maximum Ames subscribers on a variety of mediums (radio, TV news, magazines, newspaper, bloggers, podcasts and etc.) to help spread the word about the fifth annual celebration of the festival on Sept. 10-13, 2015.
This is the second part of the press release I wrote for the Maximum Ames Music Festival Line-up release.
The list of concert headliners was the main feature of the press release, but the main concept was to spread the word about the festival, which will be exclusively in a three-block, 12-venue radius of Downtown Ames for the second year. After sending the press release, I was in charge of corresponding with the media to thank them for the coverage and answer any questions about the festival.
*Newsletter writing: Maximum Ames June/July 2015 Newsletter
I created a June/July newsletter that was sent to subscribers via email. The newsletter promoted the festival and provided information about records, artists, concerts and projects.
The June/July newsletter provided Maximum Ames subscribers with information about Maximum Ames artists, new music videos, upcoming projects and concerts, and also contained information about the Maximum Ames Music Festival.
This is a short article I wrote about Gloom Balloon (one of Maximum Ames’ artists) cover for Words in a project called “To Love The Bee Gees.” This was featured in the newsletter.
I created content for the entire document using a template from a past newsletter and wrote mini stories about Gloom Balloon’s To Love the Bee Gees project, Maximum Ames expanding their record sales to West Des Moines Barnes & Noble, Christopher the Conquered’s new video, Velvet Sheep’s coverage of Maximum Ames additional and content about the festival. The images of the artists link to each of their corresponding concert events on Midwestix, which speeds up the festival ticket buying process for readers.
I updated the side bar of the document with new albums and pictures and also provided a list of upcoming concerts at the bottom of the document. I inserted hyperlinks into the photos as well to expand the user experience. For instance, for images of albums in the side bar, I provided hyperlinks to their product pages on the Iowa Music Store website, so readers could select an item from within the newsletter and buy an album to skip the item search process.
*Social media:
This photo collage was posted on the Iowa Music Store Facebook page to try and increase foot traffic into the store and promote the store’s products.
One of my goals was to increase the social media presence of the Iowa Music Store and Maximum Ames.
This Instagram post was for the Iowa Music Store. With this post, I wanted to raise awareness of the Iowa Music Store’s location and hours of operation.
To increase the number of followers, I wanted to do more with social media hashtags, upload content with interesting photos and articles, and continue to represent the different voices of Maximum Ames and the Iowa Music Store.
This was a Facebook post for Maximum Ames. I am pictured modeling the new Maximum Ames T-shirts and pointing out the store’s newest promotion on Max Ames music and shirts.
Seeing that Maximum Ames already had a strong voice, my goal was to build up the Iowa Music Store page and feature the unique and often one-of-a-kind products they sell, like zines and local Iowa art.
This Iowa Music Store Tweet promoted #concertnight at the store. This concert was one of the most popular concerts of the summer, packing the house with nearly 20 people.
Raising awareness of the Iowa Music Store’s location, products and events was one of my most rewarding projects. By building a more regular social media presence and taking more photos of the store’s products, location and introducing live posting during concert events, I hoped more people would connect to the Iowa Music Store and look forward to their upcoming posts.
Here is a collection of images I posted onto the Iowa Music Store Instagram before, during and after the Control, Stewardesses and Quervo concert.
Live tweeting and posting to Facebook and Instagram helped generate excitement for events, since I posted before, during and after concerts.
These Maximum Ames tweets support MAMF sponsor Vinyl Cafe and generate buzz about MAMF festival headliners.
For Maximum Ames, I created content to promote the Maximum Ames Music Festival and generate buzz and excitement for the headliners. I also posted about Maximum Ames artists’ music releases, upcoming concerts and projects. I constantly searched for interesting and useful content to post for social media, and I occasionally posted to thank festival (MAMF) sponsors, like Fighting Burrito or Vinyl Cafe.
This is an Instagram advertisement I drew onto the Iowa Music Store’s chalkboard to promote the sale of the new Maximum Ames shirts.
*Social media advertising:
I posted on behalf of Maximum Ames to spread awareness that Max Ames Records are now available at the West Des Moines Barnes & Noble, to which more than 100 people Liked the post and some commented their excitement.
I used social media as a platform for creating advertisements and spreading the word about concerts.
This Maximum Ames Instagram post promoted the festival and featured Max Ames’ new fliers, which I helped distribute around town.
The Iowa Music Store has a chalk board outside its door, so I frequently updated it and took pictures of the board to post on social media.
Using the chalkboard and pictures of merchandise, I created an advertisement campaign to promote the sale of the new Maximum Ames shirts. The main idea was if people bought Maximum Ames music, they could receive a $5 discount on a brand new Maximum Ames shirt. I sold a few shirts shortly after the promo was released, so it was nice to see the positive outcome of my work.
*Spotify playlist for Maximum Ames Festival:
Here is a sample of what the Maximum Ames Spotify playlist contains. I featured headliners for the festival as well as the other artists in the music playlist, which people can subscribe to and share online.
I created a playlist of nearly 50 songs with all of the MAMF 2015 Headliners.
I used the Maximum Ames and Iowa Music Store social media accounts to promote the new playlist and invited people to follow Maximum Ames on Spotify.
I included roughly five songs from the main headliners: The Mountain Goats, Grandmaster Flash, Jon Wayne & the Pain, Ex Hex and Mikal Cronin. I also included a few tracks from the other artists who will be playing the festival.
To do this, I created a Spotify account for the Maximum Ames Music Festival and posted the Spotify playlist to Maximum Ames’ Facebook and Twitter accounts. I used the Iowa Music Store’s account to retweet and re-post about the playlist to raise awareness of its availability.
*Business card design process:
After receiving constructive criticism, I edited the social media icons and adjusted the layout to create this final design for the Iowa Music Store business cards.
This was my initial design for the card. I wanted to include the store’s motto “All Iowa. All Art. All The Time,” as well as basic information.
I designed some basic business cards for the Iowa Music Store.
I wanted to use the main logo and incorporate social media icons, to show that the store has an online social media presence.
My supervisor (Chris Lyng) and the other co-founders of Maximum Ames invested in 100 business cards, which were printed at Prints Copy Center.
I went through four designs, a reformatting process and received input from the three Maximum Ames co-founders (Chris Lyng, Nate Logsdon and Chris Ford) before they signed off on my fourth design and decided to print 100 cards to start with.
I gave business cards to customers, since the cards also feature the store’s hours of operation, website and location information. Luckily, the simplicity of the design allowed me to create the cards using the Windows Paint app.
I inputted information for all of the festival concerts onto the Maximum Ames website, which is located under the “Festival” tab.
*Maximum Ames website:
To allow people to mark their calendars in advance, I created calendar events for all of the Maximum Ames Music Festival concerts and added them to the Maximum Ames website. Each event contains photos, links to Midwestix, prices, time and location. After creating events for the website, I created another series of duplicate events for the festival’s headliner bands to Facebook and posted a link to the events via Twitter.
*Square inputting sample (for Iowa Music Store inventory):
For each item, I uploaded photos (if needed) and entered prices and inventory count into the Square system. I also made items available for online purchasing.
The Iowa Music Store uses Square (via an iPad) to keep track of all inventory. When I arrived as an intern, I noticed there were numerous items that were not entered into the system and a number of repeated or incomplete item entries. I read through all of the entries and organized everything into more manageable categories. 
I also made sure that all items we had in the store were visible to customers online on the Iowa Music Store website.
I was in charge of inputting new items (often CDs and zines) into the system as they arrived and fulfilling shipping orders and online download permissions. PayPal was used to refund customers for accidental shipping charges. By the end of my internship, I read through the entire inventory list and took pictures of more than 150 missing items and uploaded them onto Square.
To see more of my social media posts, Like Maximum Ames and the Iowa Music Store on Facebook or follow them on Twitter and Instagram.
Melissa A. Garrett 