Media & Public Affairs Specialist

Develops and executes external and media strategies that position Gillette Children’s as a local, national and global leader in delivering care to patients with the most complex medical needs. This person will help develop strategy and maintain oversight of Gillette’s media relations execution and strategy and will interact routinely with social media team. This position will also provide external communications support, strategy and content/writing for gillettechildrens.org, its blog, digital platforms and for Gillette’s fundraising initiatives. The role will also provide editorial input into Gillette e-communications and assist writing and editing internal communications as necessary.

Major Challenges

• Requires excellent relationship building skills with Gillette clinicians, other staff, media and external partners. 
• Works closely with clients to effectively communicate Gillette’s programs and services, including creating brand awareness, driving engagement, and generating growth. 
• Must be able to manage many projects simultaneously with varying deadlines, purposes and audiences. 
• Must manage the sometimes-competing expectations of stakeholders. 
• Must be able to translate sometimes complex, clinical information into compelling content that is appealing to broad audiences. 
• Must be able to interact with patients and families who are often in challenging healthcare scenarios. 
• Must be on the leading edge of what’s next in PR and media, with a strong emphasis on how to drive web traffic and conversions from earned and owned channels.

Major Job Responsibilities

Develops and implements a communications strategy for generating media coverage that supports Gillette’s strategic objectives.

• Interfaces with clinical care staff to identify stories in target areas. 
• Educates Gillette clinicians, leaders and staff members on the value of, and process for, story placement. 
• Collaborates with strategic communications group to brainstorm and offer insight into media relations opportunities that originate from hospital and development staff. 
• Researches best practices and develops measurements to determine effectiveness of media efforts at Gillette. 
• Makes recommendations based on analysis of audience metrics and response rates.

Serves as the organization’s primary contact regarding public relations and media needs and provides leadership and guidance.

• Creates statements, serves as spokesperson and manages crisis communications planning. 
• Serves on incident command as public information officer (PIO). 
• Manages press events and serves as on-site media escort. 
• Supervises story development and recommends social and traditional media outlets to maximize story placement. 
• Prepares clinicians, executives and other leaders for media interviews and intervenes when media questions stray from desired story direction. 
• Handles reactive media relations scenarios that may include sensitive situations. 
• Solves problems independently and collaboratively to create appropriate communication plans, tactics and materials. 
• Generates quality written content for a variety of audiences and objectives, including development, social media, media and patient family audiences. 
• Serves as contributor for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms. 
• Helps create social media content from concept development to completion, working with internal stakeholders and external vendors to ensure content, style, and tone matches target audience and objectives. 
• Establishes and maintains relationships with patient families, building a robust compendium of individuals willing to act, speak, and/or otherwise share their positive experience.

Performs other job duties and projects as assigned.

• Identifies brand-building opportunities. 
• Participates in sharing marketing project successes to internal audiences. 
• Actively maintains files in unified project management system for ease of internal customer experience. 
• Provides proofreading and editing support for specialists on team.

Additional Information

• Pager duty – on call for media relations 
• Social media community management and posting – must be available to post and monitor social media accounts during non-business hours

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in journalism, public relations, communications or marketing or equivalent experience 
• Minimum of five years of experience in public relations Knowledge,

Skills & Abilities

• Good presentation (both verbal and written) and public speaking skills 
• Advanced writing, proofing and editing ability (appropriate tone/style, clear and concise, well organized, complete and accurate) 
• Demonstrate effective management of projects from concept to production 
• Provide leadership in process and procedure development and implementation 
• Advanced computer skills and demonstrated strong ability to use a variety of publications-related software programs 
• Independent problem solving/decision making 
• Experience in developing strong working relationships with a wide range of staff within an organization Intuitive organizational skills 
• The ability to create transformative social media strategies that can reduce dependencies on paid advertising and agencies while expanding our reach. 
• Understanding of legal issues around sharing stories.

Preferred

• Comprehension of complex medical and legislative concepts and demonstrated success using talents to translate technical information into layman’s terms – making communications simple and clear. 
• Experience advising executive- and Board-level colleagues on PR strategies, crisis and reputation management.

The annual salary range for this opportunity is $67,163 to $100,692, with a median salary of $83,928/annually. Pay is dependent on several factors including relevant work experience and internal equity. Salary is just one component of the compensation package for employees. Gillette supports career progression and offers a competitive benefits package, including a retirement saving match, tuition and certification reimbursement, paid time off, and health and wellness benefits.