It’s getting to that time of the year where us college students are wrapping up our summer internships and heading back to college. It’s pretty easy to just peace out on your last day and get swept up into the craziness that is your undergraduate education.

You don’t want to do that. Take a moment to run through this checklist to make sure you get the most and continue to get the most out of your summer job experience.

1. Create a space to maintain connections.

I’m not sure how I feel about LinkedIn. The site is pretty ugly from a design standpoint, and I haven’t made made any connections on it to people I didn’t already know. However, LinkedIn does offer a space for you to maintain connections that you made while at your internship.

Take some time to create a complete profile and then add your colleagues and connections. When you begin looking for a permanent position and need to ask for recommendations, you’ll be thankful that you stayed in contact with your colleagues.

75% of hiring managers use LinkedIn to research job candidates before making an offer, so even if you don’t see the immediate benefits on using the site, you can be sure that it is actually important to have a presence here. What if your colleagues aren’t on LinkedIn? See my next point…

2. Send a personal note to any individuals that you worked with directly.

Photo by kcolwell on Flickr

Sending a note isn’t just about sucking up to your boss (although a little flattery never hurts, does it?). Carefully think about what these people taught you and thank them for those specific things.

This will show that not only are you appreciative of your summer experience, but that you can reflect on what you have learned and grow from it. This also creates the space to contact your colleagues by email in the future.

The format of your note depends on the formality of your work environment. In more formal workplaces, a handwritten note might be appropriate, whereas in a more casual environment, a simple well-written email would be received just as well.

3. Make a list of what you accomplished on the job.

Keep a list of all the projects and accomplishment that you directly influenced and the specific impact that these projects had on your company. Be as specific as possible.

For example, instead of “Helped research search engine optimization strategies,” write down “Implemented specific SEO strategies which brought our forward-facing website from #9 to #1 on Google.” Not only will this help you update your resume more effectively, but you’ll also be able to better convey in future interviews what deliverables you have to offer.

4. Reflect on what you learned about yourself and your values.

I ask myself every Monday, “What did I learn last week?” To get the most out of your internship, you have to be consciously aware of what you are learning about yourself. Internships are the perfect time to try things out. Even if you didn’t have the super awesome internship experience you were hoping for, you now know what to look for and what to avoid when you are looking for a job in the future.

For example, I loved working this summer at NationalField because I had full control of choosing and executing my own projects. The startup atmosphere was exciting and fast-paced and I was able to set my own hours.

What did you like or dislike about your internship this summer? Make sure you remember these things when looking for a permanent position in the future.

Credit: The Life of Bryan on Flickr

In my last post on Facebook for the Over 40, I showed you how to change your privacy settings to keep your profile safe. Now that you are protected, let’s talk about interacting with friends and family. Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your connections.

1. Don’t be offended when your family members don’t friend you back.

Either you have already experienced this or you will. You friend your favorite nephew and, oh no!, they don’t accept your friend request. Do not take this personally. They probably have not cleaned up their online reputation yet.

Many facebook users, especially younger users, have their entire lives on facebook (they shouldn’t). Instead of feeling rejected, why don’t you point your family member to “How to Create an Exclusive Friends List”. That way, they can friend you and keep their profile private.

2. When responding to a wall post, respond on the other person’s wall.

So, someone wrote on your wall! Great! Now, how do you respond?  Maybe this tip seems obvious to you, but I’ve seen a surprising number of people respond to a wall post by writing on their own wall. This is like receiving a letter and addressing your responding letter to yourself. They will be looking on their wall for a response, not on yours.

When you receive a wall post, click “See Wall to Wall” in the bottom right corner of the box. This shows you the conversation between you and your friend. Now you can type in the response box and the comment will go directly to their wall.

3. Control your feed so you can hear from people you actually care about.

Most people don’t know that the main feed on the facebook homepage is fully customizable. Unless you really want to see everything your 40 random high school friends from 1970 are doing, let me show you how to customize your feed to show you the activity of the friends you really what to hear from.

Now, when you login, your feed will be populated with activity from the people in your exclusive friends list, saving you time sifting through random updates from people you don’t really care about.

4. Create a facebook group for your family.

Facebook groups, while often used to idolize Britney Spears, are also a great tool for families looking for a communal space online. Create a group for your family and start sharing pictures, videos, links, stories, or anything else your family would find interesting.

Social media has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for independent artists looking to promote their events and performances.  An individual artist can significantly increase their audience turnout without using any money by reaching out to the over 250 million active users on Facebook.   These tips will help you start thinking creatively about using Facebook as all the possibilities are still being discovered.

1. Use your fan page

Your fan page is like your base of operations.  This is your home on facebook where fans can learn more about you and your upcoming events.  With Facebook fan pages, you are able to “Target Your Update” to a specific area when sending messages.

For example, say you are going on a 5 city tour in New England.  You could send one message to all the states in New England, a different message to each city you are visiting with more specific information, and a general wall post with comprehensive details for your fans to see.  Make sure to follow the 5 Rules for Artists Using Social Media.

Tip: To increase your # of fans, try having a sign-in/sign-up sheet at each of your events so that you can email attendees thanking them for coming and inviting them to become your fan on Facebook.

2. Create friends lists

Facebook allows you to organize your friends into different categories, giving each of them various “tags” that help you more effectively communicate with the people that matter the most.  These are great for maximizing the support of your personal connections.  Organize your friends into different tiers so that you can send them more direct messages.

Facebook makes it insanely easy to quickly invite your 500 friends to an event.  So easy that we are constantly spammed with invites to events we don’t really care about (sorry, I’m just not that interested in your “Meatloaf and Jenga Party”).

Mass inviting guests can be dangerous because your connections that don’t really care will likely ignore you, and your friends that would gladly support you could be insulted that you sent them the “mass invite” instead of something more personal.  To avoid this, create different categories for your friends (ex. frequent supporters, occasional supporters, professional colleagues, etc.) so that your invites and updates can be marketed directly to them.

3. Hold contests before the event

Umphrey’s Mcgees Lights (TomK. on Flickr)

You want to harness the power of your fans to promote your event.  Word of mouth is viral and will help increase your exposure.  Try offering a weekly prize claimable at your event for fans that do a status update or tweet about your event.  Now your fans become your promotional partners, increasing the likelihood that they will attend and giving you viral publicity for very little cost.

Example: The Umphrey’s McGee held a scavenger hunt at the Rothbury Festival in early July via Twitter, where successful treasure hunters were rewarded with DVDs, keychains, and a hand written note from the band.

4. Collaborate with other artists

Collaborating is a great way not only to meet other artists that share your interests, but also to reach an entirely new audience that might not have known about you.  Try hosting a joint event that both artists promote.  Guest post on each other’s blogs leading up to the event, cross-link to each other’s facebook pages and websites, and feature the other person’s art on your page.

5. Do a daily raffle for free tickets

The week before your event, you want to kick promotion into high gear.  This is the time that people are finalizing their plans and you want to be on their calendars.  Create buzz by having a daily raffle for free tickets (or if it is an unticketed event, give away some other prizes).  This isn’t necessarily to get those ticket winners to come, as discounted tickets decrease attendance, but rather to give a daily reminder about your event and to create an incentive for your fans to tell their friends.

Or try this: Michelle Mangione will be raffling away a free guitar signed by Grace Slick.  To be entered you must sell 10 copies of her recently released CD.  Brilliant.

When I say “rapper”, what do you think of? Probably not a preteen girl spittin’ rhymes about how she isn’t ready for a boyfriend yet. This documentary might change that.

PStar (Credit: ewphoto on Flickr)

P*Star Rising is a documentary by Gabriel Noble that follows the growth (literally) of a 9-year-old female rapper from Harlem named Priscilla Diaz, stage name: P*Star. While I don’t know if I would have picked a name for a 9-year-old that produces google searches about the adult entertainment industry, I was instantly won over by this little girl’s wittiness and extremely apparent charisma. The film recently premiered at Tribeca Film Festival. Check out the trailer.

We can all learn a few things from P*Star, the artist, and Priscilla Diaz, the girl.

Connections make you or break you. P*Star wasn’t born rapping (although that would be pretty sick). She didn’t get signed by a record label because of her musical genius. She got signed because her father, an ex-rapper from the 80s, knew the right people.

While most of us aren’t lucky enough to be born into families with connections in the field of our choice, we can use social media to forge connections with people that will help advance our career. Start seeking out people on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter that will provide you with an outlet for your work. Maybe it is a museum curator, or a record producer, or an employer. Join the communities that these people are part of and start a conversation. Make a connection by asking questions or establish yourself as competent by answering other people’s questions. The questions can lead to an email, the email to an interview or audition. Most successes don’t come from luck; they come from someone saying “Hey, I know this great person you should hear about.”

You can’t do it alone. There are going to be hard times. Really hard times. I don’t care how strong you are, you can’t believe that you are going to make it without some support system. Whether it is monetary or emotional support, you need someone that will always be stable, because there will be times when everything else is not.

Have an interesting story. The thing I like most about P*Star is that she has a story. She grew up in poverty with a heroine-addicted mother and cocaine-selling father. Her father cleaned up his act and took her in, teaching her how to rap. She had her first gig when she was 6, was signed to a record contract at 10, and now has a leading role on PBS’s revival of The Electric Company. Find some things, or a series of things that make people go, “Cool!”

Originally published on StillIndie.com