Social Media Specialist

The social media specialist with contribute to the College’s mission and strategic initiatives by engaging with a wide variety of constituencies and helping build the College’s brand.

1. Communicate the College’s brand and student outcomes through the use of social media and other communications and marketing tools. Assist in content planning that reflects the College’s mission and brand strategy, and advances marketing and communications goals, while ensuring social media message and brand consistency with other communication platforms, including web and print. 
2. Collect, analyze and interpret social media and website data and analytics in order to inform strategy, optimize engagement and promote social audience growth and impact. Possess knowledge of key audiences and create plans to reach and grow those audiences through the use of relevant social media channels and content.
3. Participate in regular (weekly or more frequently) discussions with other marketing and communications team members about planning and coordination of social media posts and campaigns to drive traffic and engagement using the College’s main social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.
4. Contribute to ongoing refinements to the College’s social media strategy and objectives in a method that’s informed by knowledge of social media trends and best practices common among other institutions of higher education and in the broader marketplace.
5. Regularly monitor the College’s social media channels for engagement opportunities as well as to flag important or concerning content. Participate as part of an on-call rotation to monitor and respond to social media inquiries outside of normal business hours, including evenings and weekends, and during key events. As a member of the College’s Crisis Task Force, advise on the role of social media during possible crisis situations and during training exercises.
6. Contribute written content to the College’s website—including news items and feature stories about student and alumni outcomes—that in turn may be used to feed content for social media channels.
7. Collaborate with web and digital strategy team to help inform and execute digital ad campaigns.
8. Contribute to ongoing refinements to the College’s social media monitoring and analytics tools and processes. Possess the ability to generate analytical reports of social media activity and engagement, comparative analysis of peer and aspirant institutions, and provide insight into how data should inform existing and new strategies.
9. Demonstrate civil and inclusive behavior when interacting with staff, faculty, students and visitors to the College. Promote a flexible, collaborative and inclusive work and living environment and engage in educational opportunities to increase awareness and understanding of diversity and inclusion.
10. Support the College’s mission, vision and values, and contribute to the advancement of the College’s Strategic Plan.
11. Demonstrate a strong commitment to continuous quality improvement.
12. Support promotion, publicity and coverage of College news and events. Collaborate with other offices across the campus community to help advise, inform and coordinate social media efforts and initiatives.
13. Other duties as assigned.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

1. Thorough knowledge and understanding of major social media platforms, strategies and analytics. This includes knowledge of current individual platform algorithms in order to leverage them for building and implementing social media plans and strategy. 
2. Experience with both paid and organic social media campaigns from conception through platform execution. Possess a “nose for news” – mature news judgment in seeking out stories and engagement opportunities to leverage for social outreach, engagement and marketing.
3. High quality writing and editing skills.
4. Excellent organizational, interpersonal and communications skills.
5. Web copywriting experience.
6. Familiarity with desktop publishing, image-editing and web-editing software is a plus, and willingness to become competent is required.
7. Ability to manage multiple priorities and to work to deadline. This requires an individual who is well organized, detail-oriented, flexible and self-directed, with good stress management skills.
8. Ability to continuously demonstrate outstanding interpersonal skills in dealing with internal and external audiences.
9. Knowledge of and ability to articulate College organization, operation, philosophy and vision for the future.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

The individual in this position is a member of the Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) and part of the overall team that externally markets North Central College. This position requires a substantial understanding of the strategic use of social media platforms for brand and reputation management, particularly in alignment with public relations, marketing, editorial and digital strategy objectives. High quality writing and analytical skills and experience are essential to this position. Since the position involves extensive interaction with students, faculty, staff, campus visitors and others, outstanding interpersonal skills are also important; as is the ability to work as part of a team, manage multiple priorities, meet deadlines, exercise good judgment and maintain confidentiality on sensitive institutional information.

Education/Training:

• A bachelor’s degree is in communications, journalism, marketing or a related field is required.

Experience:

• A minimum of (1) one to (3) three years’ experience, preferably in the field of communications, public relations, journalism or marketing required. 
• Agency and/or prior experience in higher education preferred.

Licenses or Certifications:

• Social and/or digital analytics certification such as Google Analytics, Facebook Blueprint, etc., is strongly preferred.