Could you share how you first got involved in content management?
Graduated in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in English literature with a minor in Italian. Wanted to teach. The recession of 2008 wiped out that plan. I ended up doing a post-grad internship for 3 years at a newspaper + working a retail job to holdover. In 2011, I was hired for a content role at Zappos writing product desciptions. In late 2012 I moved over to the Social Media team to become their first community manager. Between 2012 - mid 2017, I kept leveling up and ended up taking over the team. Had my stint at Uber and now my role at UFC.
What skills do you find most valuable in your career, and how did you develop them?
Soft skills:
- Emotional intelligence
- Empathy
- Data analysis and interpretation
- Project management
- Timeliness
Hard skills:
- Platform analytics
- Platform CMS
- Photoshop
- Premiere
- Basic coding
What advice do you have for a college student who is interested in pursuing a content-related career path?
If you’re serious about being in content-related businesses, then leverage all the free access to platforms and information now. An individuald doesn't need to be a TikTok superstar or have a million subs on YouTube. Being able to effectively demonstrate skills on how to manage a channel, leverage data to make decisions, and communicate what's going on in the digital content space helps distinguish from the competition. Have examples of your work, too. You would be surprised how many individuals applying for content-related roles don't share examples.