Carley Nail

Former student Cheyenne Weaver visited professor Joyce Zhou’s marketing class on Tuesday to give advice for an upcoming project and talk about how the class impacted her career.

Weaver took Zhou’s marketing behavior study class two years ago. When she was a student, Weaver spoke to one of the guest speakers for the class and landed an internship through that interaction, which led to the job she has now. 

Currently, Weaver works as a communications assistant for the city of West Monroe. Her job consists of being a social media manager, content creator, assistant event coordinator and graphic designer.

Zhou said that she invites guest speakers into her classes “to share the most current knowledge in the marketing field, such as marketing analytics tools, social media campaign strategies or destination marketing best practices.”

Students in Zhou’s class are currently working on a project where they have to collect and analyze research data, discuss the findings, and provide relevant marketing strategy recommendations for a topic of their choosing. 

Weaver gave a presentation demonstrating how she conducted the different types of research for her project from the class about fast fashion. She interviewed workers in fast fashion and even interviewed some people through TikTok. 

Weaver also emphasized that using familiar resources, like social media, can be an easy way to receive accurate research and results quickly. 

Sophomore Ava Faulkinberry is taking this class to fulfill her marketing minor and has decided to research influencer marketing for her project.

Faulkinberry said that seeing Weaver’s project from a few years ago will help her in completing her own project.

“I’m definitely going to look back at her presentation to see if I’m doing my project right,” Faulkinberry said.

After the presentation, students asked Weaver other questions about her research and talked to her about her job with the city.

Weaver said that it means a lot for her to be able to come back and speak to students who are where she was just a year ago. 

“I know the importance of people who want to pour into you, who want to work with you, who want to help you learn things,” Weaver said.