Job Interview Advice

Hi guys, not sure if this is in the right section but thought it was most appropriate.

I have an upcoming Skype interview with an online based company for a marketing internship position. I've already passed the first interview which was more of a general chat about their company and what sort of experience I have, but now they'd like me to tell them what I can do to help build brand awareness across the web and to market their products.

What's thrown me off a little is that they said they already have SEO/PPC covered so they want to know what I can do outside of these things. From the first skype interview I got the impression I would mainly be blogging about their products and the niche that's involved, so I'd really appreciate any ideas people have that could go towards impressing them.

Their site is going through a bit of a revamp and they want to do more than just sell products, instead be a place with valuable content that can nurture a community.

What I've thought of so far is having a strong focus on creating videos due to the nature of their products, tutorials, demos, comparisons...that sort of thing.

I also think that joining popular forums and interacting with useful and informative information would be a good idea, linking to their company homepage or product page where relevant.

Also, improving their social media as it's currently lacking in my opinion. Contests, giveaways and incentives (in the form of small freebies/exclusive discounts) are a few things I've seen companies do effectively.

So that's pretty much all I have so far but I'd really like to have some more creative ideas to offer as these are all well known strategies, but if you can suggest anything that I've missed that's considered important I'd love to hear it too.

Thanks in advance!

Its not clean from your post that what kind of products the company sells , but you can surely add various how-to video tutorials regarding Repair of products, their upgradation, cracking codes,etc.
Would be more glad is you share more info...

It's in the field of digital effects. I also added to the list - creating highly shareable infographics, guest blogging and approaching influential people in the field to share blog content from the site. I'm sure there must be a few more things I can do though.

I would advise that you steer clear of internet based internships... they will only want to use you to discover some new marketing strategies for free or for little cost

I worked for a big eCommerce based comp. in the past... they called it an "digital internship' but they also offered commission based pay. Their whole marketing process was un-optimized so I brought them onboard with performance based marketing strategy and rolling it out offline. They took the idea and implemented it nationwide. I went on to drive top sales in the country (3X more than everyone else). They held off on paying out. Got more ideas from me and promised that they'll invest in the ideas (they didn't). Refused to pay out properly still. Threatened them with legal action. Got money I made...

Long story short, you have to wonder - "what's in it for me"? They're calling it an internship but if it's exclusively a virtual internship they it'll be considered wayy less valuable than a traditional internship at an office. Are you getting paid while working for them or are they just calling it a "learning experience"? How will work be assigned and is there anything actually they can teach you (or is it just BS to get free/cheap labor)? Be careful, they might just take all your good ideas and leave you out to dry.

Also the social media angle is quickly becoming worthless -
http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-admits-organic-reach-brand-posts-dipping/245530/
http://time.com/34025/the-free-marketing-gravy-train-is-over-on-facebook/

I was weary of that before I applied, but it seems legit as far as I can tell, especially after the first interview I had on skype. The position was advertised on my universities career area and the salary is not too bad at $26k a year.

How the work will be assigned I assume will be the guy in charge of marketing assigning me work but hopefully I can bring some things to the table as well.

I'll keep what you said in mind though definitely, but I think it's worth giving it a shot and seeing how it goes. Do you have any recommendations for me?

Ask them what kind of challenges they have or problems they would like to solve. You can build a very good career out of being a person who is know for solving problems.

I'll keep what you said in mind though definitely, but I think it's worth giving it a shot and seeing how it goes. Do you have any recommendations for me?

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an interview is a two way street. Since you're already versed with blackhat methodology you might be able to develop interesting solutions for 'em
just be sure to ask them all sorts of questions about their business / operations and what they want to accomplish. You want to expose 'genuine' curiosity about their business and come up with ideas on the fly.
Analyze their website and have a few ideas on what sites would be worth targeting and a "high level" outline of what you can do to execute. You mentioned they're looking for community engagement, bring up the idea of potentially building a sub-reddit (on reddit) or even building out a forum (vBulletin) for comprehensive engagement. Depending on the nature of the website look into implementing Disqus like commenting platform...

basically take their challenges and look for technologies which will address their problem. When you pitch it, make it sound more complicated than it is -- so they'll then consider you an expert even before hiring

You can give them some idea of using Tube sites, PDF books, Infographics that are quite effective tools.