#Wheredidyoustart №10: Anna Warren

I studied English Literature, graduating with no clue what to do. I hadn’t really heard of PR, but did a MA in it and took some social modules. I loved creating my own content and feeding it directly to an audience — and getting a great reaction.

I did an internship at Northumberland Council in their digital team. I was re-structuring and re-writing content for their website, as well as managing their social media channels and campaigns. I thought I had wanted to go into PR and deal with the press, but I found that creating my own content and talking to audiences directly was really rewarding — especially with the stats and evaluation to hand. My internship helped me realise that creating content for the web and social is what I wanted to do. So, I took the plunge and went into a pure content role as Media and Content Coordinator at Leeds University Union, a completely new role in the marketing team.

Because the role was new, I was really able to shape it and make it my own. I now manage a little (but growing) team. We manage the social media channels, create content and digital campaigns for them. I am currently helping the Head of Digital to create our brand new mobile-first website (exciting!).

If I could give advice to my former self I would say… follow what you love to do, not what you think you should be doing.

With that in mind, to others wanting to join the industry, I’d say get started in digital in any way you can, but don’t worry about your job being specifically digital at first. Almost every job can be digitally driven if you want to experiment and improve what you’re already doing.

It’s a great industry to work in. I love the creativity and innovation of working in digital, it’s always growing and developing. I also love the collaborative aspect, you need writers, programmers, designers and community managers all coming together.

Have a story to tell that will inspire others to get into digital? Get in touch at [email protected]