Good morning. The era of kids wanting to become singers or sports stars is officially over. Being an influencer is the new dream for Gen Z and people across the globe. With this in mind, companies are rushing in to capitalize on the growing creator economy, and they’re hiring interns to help them do it.

Find out how Momo Messerschmidt earned an internship with The Influencer Marketing Factory, what she’s done in that role, and what you can do to earn one too.

—Sean Sebers

In today's edition:

🏆 What earned her the role?

📊 What she does

📚The Res.

📈 Give us more!

Momo Messerschmidt

Marketing and Trend Hunter Intern

Coming from the LA area, Momo is a first-gen university student at the University of Southern California. There she’s pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing. When she’s not studying or working, Momo likes going to the beach and creating content for her own personal TikTok.

The company she works for, The Influencer Marketing Factory (IMF), is an influencer marketing agency that helps brands leverage the creator economy. Simply put, IMF takes their network of influencers and brands, connects the right influencers to the right brand deals, and makes $$$ for everyone in the process. IMF also publishes reports on influencer related topics using data they collect.

What earned her the role @The Influencer Marketing Factory?

As a sophomore in college, Momo was fully immersed in her marketing classes and campus opportunities. Finding an internship wasn’t really top of mind…yet.

At the time, she was taking a social media strategy class that involved creating a campaign for Seagram’s, an alcoholic beverage company. Given the laws surrounding alcohol in marketing, Momo found it challenging to leverage social media marketing for this project. 

During this process, Momo was at an event for USC Reach, a social media entertainment club at USC. This club happened to be hosting the CEO of IMF, Alessandro Bogliari, as a guest speaker presenting on his company.    

During his presentation, Momo saw that IMF had worked with an alcoholic beverage company before, and wanted to know how they approached marketing despite legal restrictions. When she asked Alessandro her question at the end of his talk, he was pretty shocked that a student had taken such an interest in a specific part of his presentation.

This led to the CEO of IMF asking Momo to send her resume and LinkedIn profile for a possible intern position. After a couple rounds of interviews, communicating further with IMF’s CEO, and some back-and-forth scheduling attempts, Momo secured a Marketing and Trend Hunter Intern position at The Influencer Marketing Factory.

Momo earned this position by immersing herself in a school project, becoming an active member of a campus group, and having genuine interest in someone else’s work. It’s hard to replicate the timing of these things, but we can all take a page out of Momo’s book and start pursuing an interest versus an outcome.

Pro Tip: Even though you might not have CEO’s speaking at your school, the opportunity to contact people on LinkedIn still exists. The power of a single conversation trumps any amount of cold applications you send. Become interested in an industry and start messaging professionals for virtual coffee chats!

📚The Res.

What a marketing and trend hunter intern @IMF does:

Momo is heavily involved in a variety of research and writing related projects.

In her day-to-day work, Momo sends a news bulletin to a few of her supervisors that consists of new articles from the influencer, marketing, and tech spheres. If Meta announced a new AI software, or if an ad agency published a groundbreaking study, Momo would have read that news a day prior, written a sentence with her thoughts on the matter, and made a condensed list of articles to send to her coworkers in the morning.

At the end of her week, Momo works on IMF’s LinkedIn newsletter called Spreading the Influence. Content is usually drawn from her daily news bulletins and expanded on for longer form content.

Momo also spends time researching/ideating for influencer campaigns. Taking the time to find specific influencers for a specific brand campaign, brainstorming possible video content to pitch to influencers, and consuming content herself are all in a day's work for Momo.

Creator Economy Report + Data

IMF released a massive Creator Economy Report for 2023 that included information on emerging creator trends, expert opinions, and more (Download it here if you’re interested). To create such an extensive report, IMF had to first survey content creators and users, grab opinions from industry experts, and put it all together into a cohesive report. Spoiler alert, Momo was part of this creation process.

With support from IMF’s CEO, Alessandro, and with experience from a recent stats class, Momo contributed to sorting large sets of survey data. Once she became familiar with a few repeatable formulas, the real challenge was making sure data wasn’t mislabeled or misentered.

Momo was also key in researching gaps of information in the report, and virtually meeting with industry experts to gather impactful quotes/opinions. 

If you’re interested in learning more about Momo Messerschmidt and her role at The Influencer Marketing Factory, reach out to her through LinkedIn and ask to chat! You can also watch her full interview on YouTube. Links can be found below. 

📈Give Us More!

💼Want to hear more from Momo?

• Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel linked here.

🔍Connect with Momo!

• Connect with her on LinkedIn here.

📢Advice from Momo:

One of the main reasons why I got this internship in the first place was because I built a relationship with the person I was receiving an internship from. Another way to say that is just relationship building. I feel that relationships are really big. Networking is really big. And once you start working somewhere, keep on building those relationships and strengthening them because at the end of the day, we're people. Everyone behind these companies are people. Friendship is really important. Respect is really important. 

Don't think of it as how can you serve me? When you're applying for an internship, you're bringing your skills to the table. And of course there are things that you need: maybe you want a paid internship or there's a specific amount of time you want to work, but regardless of that, you also have to think in terms of how can I help you? It shouldn't have to be a one-way street. Really just making sure that there's a level of respect and value being exchanged between the two parties. 

And of course, being a first gen myself, I know a lot of first gens out there are really nervous, but you know, if one internship doesn't work out, it's not like it's a permanent job. And then there are people I know who do an internship every semester but it’s important to just do what feels right for you. Make sure that you are your own person and that you're having conversations and bringing value to the table. And of course, be authentic. Being authentic is number one.

—Momo Messerschmidt

*Edited for clarity*