Student Internship Highlight: Allison Finkl (SweatPals)
Allison Finkl, a second year advertising graduate student, is currently a marketing coordinator at SweatPals, an Austin fitness app startup. SweatPals is a social fitness app that has created a space to make the world healthier, happier, and more connected by bringing people together through fitness and health. The app connects users with fitness events, friends, and communities in your area by giving you access to a calendar of events focused on fitness and wellness.
Allison said that she found out about this position “surprisingly through LinkedIn,” but that she had followed the brand on Instagram before stumbling across this opportunity.
When I asked Allison about her responsibilities in this role she shared:
“I was hired initially as a social media intern, but I was recently promoted to marketing coordination. With this, I have a wide variety of responsibilities. The main tasks I work on are managing their (SweatPals) Instagram and TikTok, creating content, managing and creating merchandise, helping to run events, and I am constantly looking for new marketing ideas to gain a wider audience.”
An average day of work for Allison consists of catching up on DMs and any activity on the company’s social platforms. Content creation is a large part of her day-to-day responsibilities. When she is not working on social media tasks, she spends her time working on new marketing initiatives and designing merchandise which is something she “absolutely loves to do.” She also tries to attend as many in person events as possible in order to meet new people. She has found that going to these events really helps with building business to consumer relationships.
Allison believes that the qualitative and quantitative research course she took her first semester has been extremely helpful in this position. They are often looking for research regarding audience analytics and user demographics and knowing how to do just that has helped her tremendously. She also feels as though what she learned in the TexasCreative portfolio class has helped her in situations where creative ideas are needed.
When I asked Allison what her favorite part of working with SweatPals is she shared:
“My favorite part of working with SweatPals is seeing our work directly make an impact on the consumers. I will go to events and people will come up to me and tell me how much SweatPals has changed their life in a positive way. I love seeing people make new connections and trying new activities they would have never thought of doing. My coworkers are also amazing and it’s never a dull moment going to work.”
Allison feels as though this internship has prepared her for future opportunities by allowing her to dip her toes into various different departments and try out new tasks. She said she is happy that she took the chance on working for a startup because it has taught her how to adapt to an ever changing environment. “Being a graduate student with an internship isn’t an easy task, so my time management and organizational skills have never been better.”
Lastly, Allison had some advice to share with those who are looking for potential internships. She encourages other students to be themselves and to not feel pressure to conform to what they believe the perfect intern looks like. Allison encourages giving truthful answers in your interviews because you never know exactly what a business is looking for in their hiring process. “When you’re at the job, work hard! Share your opinions because most of the time the best ideas are created when two different opinions come together.”
