Sophie Smith
About Sophie
Current role: Content and Digital PR Executive, NORTH
Degree studied: MA Media and PR, 2021
What is your current role?
I work for NORTH, a content performance and digital PR agency based in Newcastle. My role is content and digital PR executive, so it’s a mixture of both aspects of what we do here at NORTH.
I write and optimise content so our website performs well in search engine rankings. For example, being the first website you see at the top of Google.
What is the best part of your job?
I love the culture here at NORTH, we all get on amazingly. The parent company, N21, really cares about progression, mental health and a positive work/life balance too. There are also plenty of perks so I’m super lucky to have landed a job at a great agency straight from university.
Studying at Newcastle
What did you enjoy most about studying at Newcastle?
I loved the fashion module of my masters, after doing three years of a maths degree it was fun to do something a bit more creative.
It was enjoyable because I switched from a degree that I didn’t feel was me to a degree that made so much sense for who I am. I definitely recommend going with your gut when choosing your degree!
It was amazing to have such a great mentor who taught me lots and opened plenty of doors for me when it came to graduating.
Working alongside him truly changed everything for me and has helped me get where I currently am.
I also did an internship alongside the visiting professor Steven Waddington. It was amazing to have such a great mentor who taught me lots about the developing PR industry and opened plenty of doors for me when it came to graduating.
Working alongside him truly changed everything for me and has helped me get where I currently am.
What skills and knowledge have you found useful in your career?
I understood the premise of a press release for sure. Although they are very different in the digital PR world compared to traditional PR. Having an understanding of the media landscape has also come in handy when planning PR campaigns.
My maths degree has also come in handy throughout my job. There’s a bit of spreadsheet work and some analysis of figures when we write our monthly reports that makes use of my maths brain. We also run a lot of data-led campaigns here at NORTH, and understanding the data behind them is useful too.
