TAI Student Amy Cooley Interning with Kidd Kraddick Morning Show

TAI student Amy Cooley is spending this fall as a social media intern with the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show. Far from an average internship, Cooley is active with the radio show, on-air and off.

Cooley and singer Rita Ora.

“As the social media intern, my primary responsibilities include live-tweeting the show,” Cooley said, “so yes, I’m there at 6:00AM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, also scheduling tweets with the content from that day’s show for the rest of the day, and writing posts with the content for the show’s affiliates – stations other than 106.1 that play the show around the state and country. Other tasks are keeping their followers engaged on Instagram and Snapchat stories.”

Cooley has had many unique opportunities throughout her internship so far, including meeting musicians and getting to go on the air.

“It’s been a really interesting opportunity,” Cooley said. “Because my daily tasks are so trivial – literally did the cliché coffee and breakfast run a couple of times – but at the same time I’ve had really cool opportunities to meet incredible artists that I am now a huge fan of their music, like Rita Ora and MAX. I’ve also started my own podcast with my co-intern. I even got to go on the radio to promote the podcast, which was probably the coolest moment of my entire life.”

The experience of working for a radio show is very different than working for an agency. Having done both, Cooley has learned how the culture varies at each workplace.

Cooley and singer MAX.

“Most of us that intern at agencies have the benefit of really feeling like a part of the team, being fully embraced and given real work on projects,” Cooley said. “Over the summer [interning at greenlight ad] I felt like I already worked at the agency full-time. Here, I’m getting a very different experience, which I need to take bigger advantage of, to learn more about radio. But it’s not as tight-knit because everyone is so busy doing their individual tasks. There isn’t as much time for mingling. It takes time to become closer to the people here because everything is happening in real-time.”

That being said, working at the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show has taught Cooley many lessons that she might not have learned at an agency.

“It’s been interesting to see how advertising ties into the actual medium,” Cooley said, “like knowing the specific requirements for a radio promotion, how the promotions affect the ratings of the show, and hearing the hosts of the show record their radio spots. As Temerlin students, we’re obviously so used to hearing it all from the theoretical perspective on the advertising side, but now I’m seeing it in action. I’m also learning, in case I ever wanted to go into radio, what makes for good content and how to keep a conversation going and make it interesting through doing the podcast.”

Cooley recording her podcast.

Like many students, Cooley is taking advantage of doing multiple internships to help decide what path she wants to take after graduation, completing an account service internship at an agency and now a social media internship for a radio show.

“I’ve got account service under my belt, now I want to see what something completely different is like!” Cooley said. “I’ve always loved performing, growing up doing theater, and maybe radio is a combination of this and advertising? But I’m always going to be interested in brand strategy. I’ve thought about exploring entertainment marketing, so this experience kind of ties into that. Social media plays such a big role in everything in general so this helps for that, too. Overall, I just thought this was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, since this is such a well-known name, that the internship could only help me no matter what.”

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