Women Who Lead, Do, and Change: Hannah Anderson

Hannah Anderson is a social media pioneer and agency leader, starting out by building viral online communities for fun before co-founding the groundbreaking Social Chain. Now Social Media Director and Managing Partner at NewGen, she works with global brands and top creators while redefining what it means to lead – proving you don’t have to be the loudest voice in the room to make the biggest impact.

Tell us a bit about yourself, your background and your current role.

My name is Hannah Anderson and I am currently Social Media Director and Managing Partner at NewGen. We are a social, creator and creative agency who work with brands such as Pepsi, Sega and Amazon, and creators such as Amelia Diamoldenberg and KSI.

My path into digital was potentially quite unique as growing up I always wanted to be a primary school teacher; so much so that I went to university and qualified to to pursue this career. Whilst I was at university doing my teacher training, I got fascinated by social media and started seeing what the limitations were on this new medium. I began building pages on Twitter for fun and ended up with a few hundred thousand followers on my pages that were about Harry Potter, the Sims and life in Britain.

It was at this point around 2013, I met Steven Bartlett and Dominic McGregor – they had similar pages themselves and that’s when Social Chain was born. We were essentially a group of kids who had huge influence online through our network of communities, and over the next 8 years, Social Chain grew to be one of the most influential agencies of its time.

Throughout the journey from doing social media as a hobby to co-founding Social Chain to now working at NewGen for the past 4 years, one thing has remained constant – my fascination about this communication tool that amplifies every aspect of humanity for better or worse.

Biggest win, biggest lesson

Biggest win? Being listed in the Vogue list of the most influential women in the country in 2018 alongside people like Meghan Markle and Dua Lipa.

It taught me that you can have several awards and accolades and be in one of the biggest magazines in the world and still feel undeserving. And that you can look up to people who have all of these awards and accolades, but when you’re one of them, you realise they’re just people too because christ if you’re there and you’re as flawed as they come, they must be too.

Have you faced any career challenges? 

Working in social, you quickly realise that the platforms have all the power. I’ve had Twitter pages deleted, Facebook pages demonetised, client pages suddenly disappear. Whole revenue streams wiped out over night. At the time, it’s hard, but with hindsight you realise that no matter what happens in social, it's not that deep. Nobody dies if you get shadow banned, nobody dies if you post the wrong copy. You always come out the other side.

Where do you still see gaps or barriers for women in digital, and what one action would accelerate change?

I think leadership in digital is still very male dominated and I honestly think that’s because men tend to speak the loudest. To be truthful, I’m not sure what the best answer is, because I know I am very lucky to sit in the position I do because I’m not loud, I’m reserved and quiet – but that doesn’t mean I don’t have things to say, I just speak when I need to speak.

But I think a lot of other women like me will have certainly been pushed out of conversations and that shouldn’t be the case.

If you had five minutes with a woman who is just starting her digital career, what would you tell her to focus on first?

I would tell her to try things. When I started out, that’s all I did. I was lucky to stumble upon something I enjoyed and loved, but once I had, all I wanted to do was try and test and build. If you’re starting out in social in particular, then build a TikTok page for yourself or your dog or your house or your team. You learn the most when doing, and when doing for fun!

What do you think companies can do to support career progress for women working in digital roles?

Elevate all voices. The loudest in the room isn’t always the one you should listen to. Champion women, promote women, trust women.

What three digital tools or platforms could you not run your work without?

• Percentage calculator (it’s a website for calculating percentages – I could probably use ChatGPT for this now but I do love a retro site).
• SnapTik – downloading TikToks and turning them into GIFs for presentations / pitches. Again simple but one I use every day.
• All of the social platform analytics (I LOVE TIKTOK STUDIO AND ALSO META CREATOR STUDIO AND I’M PROUD TO SAY IT).

In the next 12 months, which emerging trend or shift should our community keep on their radar?

AI – we can’t hide from it – it’s going to continue to change things DRASTICALLY. There’s so much to keep up with but it can be so overwhelming. I would say for now, just experiment with it and also follow company policy on it. The best companies will be building policy and training, and I think a good place to start is to follow that, but also do some of your own research on the side.