Discover Durham

Discover Durham is Durham’s marketing and sales agency, generating economic impact by drawing 12+ million leisure, business, and sports visitors to our vibrant community. Discover Durham also operates the Durham Sports Commission (DSC), a 501(c)3 whose mission is to create economic and social impact by leading the community’s efforts to attract, support and promote sporting events at every level.

For the Social Media Manager role, Discover Durham requires someone dedicated to increasing awareness of Durham’s attractiveness as a visitor destination across social networks by creating, curating and publishing content. From a leisure marketing perspective, the manager will execute the organization’s social-first content strategy as well as develop new ways to engage with new and returning visitors as well as those who are proud of and regularly engage with the Durham community.

The manager will be a strategic contributor responsible for planning an editorial calendar and producing content as well as developing social media campaigns and tracking KPIs that align with the larger Marketing team’s goals. This person will serve as a social media expert within the organization and advise different departments and leadership on approaches and executions.

This job requires a strong attention to detail, content production, online community building and monitoring ongoing conversations related to Durham. This role reports directly to Senior Manager of Digital Marketing and Analytics.

Primary Responsibilities

• Uphold and maintain the Discover Durham brand, so that our unapologetic voice and visuals are consistently represented across accounts.
• Execute a social-first content strategy for the organization and deepen approaches that encourage engagement from followers across channels.
• Plan a social media calendar, that supports and aligns with the Marketing team’s overarching content calendar, and identify opportunities and ideate how best to frame or design content to address various events or occurrences related to our organization’s mission.
• Generate, edit, produce, curate and share content in a timely manner across channels in social-friendly ways, particularly vertical video. Be responsible for conceptualization to publishing to engagement.
• Execute paid social media campaigns, including monitoring live campaigns and pulling metrics reports when the campaign has ended.
• Participate and engage with a cross-functional Marketing department, contributing social perspective on larger strategy conversations, campaigns and future planning.
• Monitor and report marketing-related key performance metrics, setting benchmark goals for growth and engagement.
• Identify models to be featured in content as well as manage any models, contractors or freelancers hired as warranted to assist in social media coverage and content creation.
• Coordinate, lead and when necessary, capture coverage of live events.
• Curate both user-generated content (UGC) and in-house produced social content to support website editorial needs and to grow our multimedia library.
• Be responsive to public and private queries or comments, responding quickly, courteously, and correctly to questions, comments and other engagement across social channels. Foster ways to encourage two-way conversations about Durham as a destination.
• Help brainstorm creative activations that brand Durham as well as encourage more UGC.
• Support other departments and leadership as social opportunities present themselves to brand and increase awareness of the work we do across the organization.
• Consult and advise Durham-based attractions and visitor-friendly businesses on their social approaches.
• Establish relationships with key content producers and social media managers of prominent accounts in Durham.
• Identify new opportunities across networks as technology and platforms evolve and trends in social media, design tools and applications shift.
• Maintain and abide by social networks’ terms of service and Discover Durham’s community guidelines.
• At least 3 years of experience as a social media manager or similar role.
• Knowledge of best practices for social media platforms and desire to stay ahead of social media trends.
• Portfolio showcasing excellent writing, copy editing, and proofreading skills and understanding of standard style guidelines.
• Portfolio showcasing experience capturing and editing effective mobile photography, video and live video for social platforms.
• Experience as a social media content producer with mobile-based photo and video editing tools.
• Sound editorial judgment and ability to represent Durham and Discover Durham in both writing tone and interactions with internal and external stakeholders.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and proactive, with an ability to manage multiple requests and use time wisely.
• Willingness to work on nights and weekends as needed to cover Durham events with flex time awarded.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, public relations, journalism or a related field.
• Strong knowledge of Durham and its strengths and attractions.
• Knowledge of AP Style.
• Familiarity working with a website CMS or updating content using a website editor.
• Experience working with a social media management tool.
• Experience with content production via Adobe Creative Cloud is a bonus.

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