The Divers Alert Network’s (DAN) marketing team has three main departments: social media outreach, marketing/communications, and videography. Working across these different areas meant that I got to learn a variety of skills that I could use in combination with each other during my time at DAN this summer. These skills will also be so useful moving forward in my career!
My primary job was working in social media outreach, where I came up with and developed all of the new social media posts for DAN’s accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (X). This was super fun because I was able to have some creative freedom in delivering the content that DAN wanted to share on its platforms. I started experimenting with different methods like detailed graphics, Instagram reels, photo album-style posts, and many others. After posting, I would typically analyze the feedback and see what was working best to bring in new viewers instead of the same DAN followers watching our content over and over.
This was very interesting, and by the end of my internship, my posts were reaching 70,000 people — 40-50% of which were non-followers, which is huge for DAN! Some of the posts I worked on are shown below, but go check the rest out on DAN’s social media accounts!
My work in the marketing department also consisted of helping prepare and collaborate on displays for promotional efforts. This included planning giveaways for dive events across the country, and setting up and packing banners and posters for DAN representatives to take to different conferences and shows to promote DAN. This was always fun because I got to see what the DAN reps would be advertising and how they promote to new divers.
Another campaign I worked on with DAN targets student divers. Year after year, more and more divers are getting their certification cards with different instructors and entering the world of diving. With the company’s current marketing materials, most students think that DAN is just an “insurance company” for divers, and most of them truly don’t see a reason to purchase insurance or even look into the mission of DAN.
DAN is now trying to figure out how to properly teach these incoming students what their brand is and what they have to offer. I helped come up with new ways to show students, while they are still in training courses, that DAN is way more than an insurance company and just how important being protected while diving can be for them! This was so fun, and I hope to see more of DAN in my future diving courses.
I have worked on social media teams and marketing teams before, but I have never had the chance to work in large-scale videography until I was assigned a project to help film for one of the videos DAN will be showing at DEMA this November. DEMA stands for “Dive Equipment and Marketing Association” and is one of the largest diving conferences! The video I worked on is about what DAN does for their interns and how this internship is so important to the mission of Divers Alert Network. So I was exceptionally excited to have a part in putting this video together!
I filmed a lot of “behind-the-scenes” (BTS) shots of the other interns working on research assignments, touring different facilities, diving and setting up dive gear, doing one-on-one interviews, working with participants at research studies, and much more. I definitely was not on my own for this project, as I had the help of DAN’s Multimedia Designer, Kyle Habecker. This project was so awesome, and I am so proud to say that I had a part in the final outcome of this video! Stay tuned for the final video at DEMA in November 2024!
I also filmed many other promotional videos for DAN, where I got to practice setting up film sets like the one pictured above. This was something that I had never gotten the chance to do before. I filmed interviews (like the one pictured above) between DAN representatives and people who came in to speak about dive-related topics. The behind-the-scenes photo above is from an interview I helped film between Francois Burman (from DAN) and Mark Gresham (from PSI-PCI). They talked about safety practices for cylinders and other really interesting topics!
All in all, this internship has truly helped me advance my skill set in marketing as well as diving, and I am so honored that I got the opportunity to work with such an amazing team. The experience I have gained this summer will help me greatly in my future career, and I am excited to see where it takes me!
