By Anna Sedlacek, senior advertising and public relations student
When individuals embark on an internship their role is pretty obvious -- be a student. Learn as much as you can to better yourself and your career. But when Ryann Lynn, a senior advertising and public relations student began her internship for AARP Nebraska, her role transitioned to teacher.
“When I started attending the monthly meetings for AARP Nebraska, I took minutes and sent them to the co-president,” she said.
As her time grew with the organization, so did her involvement. One of the projects Lynn helped AARP Nebraska with was their membership with the Nebraska Caregivers Coalition. The Nebraska Caregivers Coalition was formed in 2013 to raise awareness and support for caregivers throughout Nebraska. AARP Nebraska has helped the coalition by having resources available to caregivers and helping advance policies such as paid family medical leave for caregivers and caregiver tax credits.
The group had some online presence from the AARP website, but with Lynn’s help the group expanded its online presence by starting a Facebook page.
“This past March the group began discussing the need to recruit new members,” Lynn said. “Facebook held exciting potential.”
The Nebraska Caregivers Coalition primarily consists of women over the age of 55. For many of them, Facebook was a tool they did not know how to use.
“I needed to teach members what was needed to make this page useful but more importantly create a campaign that invites engagement by family, friends and colleagues to the page,” Lynn said.
To help her group learn more about Facebook, Lynn let them browse around her Facebook profile to familiarize themselves with the site. Lynn found herself not only fine-tuning her communication skills but also gaining perspective on how critical communication is.
“My group was really receptive and wanted to learn, so that made my job a little less daunting and very fun.”
Once Lynn’s members were engaged with the project and confident with their newly learned skill, the results matched their efforts. With each member contributing to the Facebook page, likes, shares and volume of page visits began to flourish.
“Facebook is more successful when engagement is high, so I was really pleased with how far the group has come and I cannot wait to see where it will go.”
Though her time with the AARP Nebraska and the Nebraska Caregivers Coalition has come to an end, Lynn identified some lasting lessons: no one is ever too young to teach or too old to learn.