How to get a career in digital

Moving from traditional media in to digital is the best career decision I have ever made. In 1996, when I made the leap, digital was called the ‘Information Super Highway’ by politicians and many of my colleagues regarded this to be a foolish step in to the unknown.
Contrary to what may believe, making the leap requires no technical knowledge just a bag full of enthusiasm, a logical mind and a desire to learn today something that contradicts what you learned yesterday.

Colleagues and friends who work in traditional media businesses frequently ask me for advice on how to get a career in digital. Unlike medicine or the law there is no formal entry structure so ‘getting in’ is considerably less formal. After interviewing hundreds of candidates for digital roles the tips below will guide any budding digital evangelist as to how to get a career in digital. Following these steps will demonstrate more digital knowledge and desire for the business than most candidates I have met.

How To Get A Career in Digital – 16 Steps

Here are my 16 steps to follow if you want to know how to get a career in digital:

  1. Learn about the digital industry from sources such as SEO Moz or Econsultancy
  2. Find out how to set up a WordPress blog and launch one focusing on one of your favourite subjects
  3. Establish a presence in social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest for your blog
  4. Set-up Google Analytics, monitoring and Google Webmaster Tools reporting for your blog and social media channels
  5. Publish great content regularly to your blog and get it shared in services like Digg, Stumbleupon and Reddit
  6. Use social media to tease audiences and gain likes, shares and comments
  7. Grow the audience to your blog
  8. Make your blog payby adding ads from Google Adsense
  9. Analyse what is working and what is not
  10. Plan improvements to your blog and social media presence
  11. Gather your own great case studies
  12. Decide what area of digital you want to specialise in
  13. Learn more about your area of specialism
  14. Get digital qualifications
  15. Digitise your CV
  16. Apply for digital roles

How Did you Get A Career In Digital?

Let me know what you think about these suggestions as to how to get a career in digital.