My internship at Zooma has now ended, but before I hand over The Internship Pod to an upcoming intern, I'll share a very special episode with you all!
In this episode, I invited the first external guest to The Internship Pod, Caroline Sjöbeck. She's the content director and operations manager for 376 Films, a production company based in Malmö.
Caroline has a background in film studies and felt that she found her passion early on during her studies. Today she has a broad role in the company, but her primary responsibility is to create a framework and coordinate the company's marketing activities.
In our discussion we spoke about:
- The difference between 376 Films and other content suppliers on the market
- The challenges of working with marketing in a start-up
At the end of the episode, Caroline is sharing some valuable tips for anyone facing the same challenges or who might face them in the future.
As always, links and a complete transcription can be found below!
Enjoy!
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Transcription
JK: Hi and welcome. I'm Josefine and you're listening to Internship Pod. In this week's episode, I was joined by Caroline Sjöbeck, Content Director and Operations Manager at 376 films, which is a production company based in Malmö. This is a very special episode because Caroline is the first external guest participating in the Internship Pod. We spoke about the differences between a production company and other content suppliers that you can find on the market today the challenges of working with marketing in a startup and how you can learn by doing. Enjoy. Welcome back to the internship pod.
CS: Thank you, Josefine.
JK: I'm very grateful to have you as my first external guest in the internship pod.
CS: Thank you for having me.
JK: Maybe you could introduce yourself and your role in 376 films?
CS: Yeah, of course. I'm Caroline, and I do multiple things in the company. I do filmmaking, of course, and economic things. But my main responsibility in the company is marketing and taking care of the community.
JK: So as you just mentioned, community, so 376 films are not only production, he's also some sort of artist hub or community. Would you like to explain a bit more about that?
CS: Yeah, of course. So 376 is mainly a production or a film production company, but we also have a little community of other artists from the city.
JK: But that is nice. Is it mostly artists and creative people from Malmö, where the company is based, or do you have people in the community from other parts of Sweden as well or the world maybe?
CS: Most people in the community are from Malmö, but we also have others from other cities. The artist in the community also works in all different kinds of artistic fields. So we really enjoy and value the collaboration that we get with the community.
JK: That's so nice. I can imagine doing a lot of collaboration with other artists, like outside of the company must be a lot of like, you know, you can learn from each other and you can help each other out a lot. So that must be a great way of working.
CS: Yeah. It's really inspiring and motivating to work with other people that are very passionate about their subject. And I think it's it not only makes us grow as filmmakers, but the other artists in the city also grow, like we learn from each other and lift each other up.
JK: Hmm. That's really nice. But today, there are many creative content suppliers out there on the market. You know, you see everything from content creating agencies to video production agencies to like a hybrid of these two. But so what would you say is the difference between 376 films as a production company and other companies out there on the market that create the same kind of content?
CS: I think because 376 is based on filmmakers. We love to bring in the storytelling, all the projects that we do, even if it's music videos or commercials. So we really value the storytelling aspect of each project. We also have a lot of different skills within the company and within the community. That's one thing that really makes us stand out, I think.
JK: So what is the background of the people working in the company? Are you all filmmakers or are you content creators?
CS: So the founders of 376 all met in Sydney film school. So they had all been studying film even before the company started. When they all move back to Sweden they kinda made that passion into a company because they really wanted to like make this happen and actually do this for a living. And from that, it kinda just grew.
JK: So that's nice that it like started as some sort of dream. And then you're, you're actually on the market as a production company. So but through 376 films, it's, it's still a very young company.
CS: We became a company like an official company last early last year, I would say.
JK: Right. But being classified as a startup on the market, what has been the biggest challenge for you from a marketing perspective?
CS: I don't really have any background or studying in marketing, so I kind of didn't really I didn't really know anything about marketing when I came into this company. So I kind of have been I've been learning as I've been doing and trying to figure out what's the best thing to do and how this thing works. Well, by just trying it out and yeah, seeing what works.
JK: But that's a great mindset I think because from my experience at least there are endless opportunities on, on how to do it, you know, and how to work with marketing as, and as you also know, like digitalisation changed almost from, from day to day with like different tools and new things that you can learn. So I can imagine it's been both highs and lows from you, like starting the marketing of this company, like from scratch.
CS: Yeah, of course it's been, it's been quite a journey. I started by doing this alone, trying to just figure out all kind of different strategies, and I kind of like what content works and what, what time is good to post and all that kind of stuff by just doing and failing and learning and continuing. And now I've kind of gotten a little support team and a little team for, for marketing and uh, yeah, I think we learnt a lot during, during the, the journey.
JK: So how are you working with your marketing today?
CS: We're working a lot with structure and planning ahead. Before I kind of just did it on the day like posted when I kind of felt like it or kind of when I thought it was good. But now we have some research behind us and planning like weeks ahead of like what we should post and why and how that would, how we would achieve our goals.
JK: Hmm. So do you have maybe three tips for anyone out there? They're facing some sort of, like, same challenge, maybe starting a company right now or might face a challenge in the future.
CS: Uh, yes, of course. I would say my tips would be learn by doing, find a good structure and find a little support system where you can bounce ideas. And so you don't have to do this other thing. So you don't have to do all of this all alone.
JK: That's some great tips. And I, I definitely believe they will be helpful for anyone listening. Thank you so much, Caroline, for joining me in this week's episode of The Internship.
CS: Thank you for having me.
