Description

The Social Media Director plays a pivotal role in shaping and executing the social media strategy for LNP | LancasterOnline, a news organization in Lancaster, Pa. The director will lead a team of social media professionals, collaborating closely with digital marketing and sales teams to elevate the reach and impact of our news content across various social media platforms. The Social Media Director reports to the newsroom’s managing editor of content.

The Social Media Director is a strategic thinker and dynamic, collaborative leader who is passionate about leveraging social media to enhance the reach and impact of news and information across Lancaster County and surrounding region. This director will have a proven track record of audience growth, innovation and planning, as well as fluency in best practices and foresight on emerging platforms and markets.  

This position not only experiments in creative, social-first local content but also rolls out a strategy across the newsroom for collaboration on social-first opportunities, as well as strategy for consistent posting and optimization strategies across platforms

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy Development: Formulate and execute a comprehensive social media strategy aligned with the organization's editorial and business objectives.  
• Leadership and Team Management: Lead and mentor a team of social media professionals, providing guidance on content creation, real-time reporting, community engagement and audience growth. Foster a collaborative and innovative team culture to enhance the news organization's digital presence and engage new audiences.
• Content Planning and Creation: Develop high-quality, engaging content across various social media platforms, maintaining brand voice and journalistic integrity. Use analytics and KPIs to adjust and finetune strategy and initiatives.  
• Campaign Management: Plan and execute social media campaigns to promote special news coverage, events and investigative reports. Monitor and analyze campaign performance, making adjustments for optimal impact.
• Audience Engagement and Community Building: Actively engage with audiences on social media platforms, fostering meaningful conversations around news stories. Identify new audiences and platforms for growth. Develop strategies to build and maintain a vibrant online community.

 Essential Job Functions

• Perform all supervisory and leadership responsibilities associated with the newsroom, including motivating, coaching, training, appraising, rewarding and disciplining, and addressing complaints and resolving issues of the employees. Also, as part of a hiring team, will be responsible for interviewing and hiring new talent.
• Supervise and facilitate work that is fair, balanced, accurate, compelling, and makes a positive impact in the communities we serve.
• Foster a newsroom work environment that champions excellent journalism, creativity, collaboration, teamwork and a sense of fulfillment.
• Create and/or contribute to content as needed.

In addition to the essential functions listed above, the employee is expected to exercise honesty, integrity and respect with all clients and co-workers, maintain a professional appearance and demeanor, demonstrate a positive attitude, communicate effectively with co-workers and clients, work with accuracy, efficiency, and attention to detail, respect the work environment and keep it as neat and clean as possible, and exercise initiative to learn new skills and tasks and to help co-workers when possible.   

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in journalism, communications, related field or equivalent experience.  
• At least 3-5 years’ experience in administration and supervision in a newsroom environment.
• At least 5-10 years’ social media experience (content creation, publication, analytics, paid campaigns).
• Proven ability to lead a team.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.  
• Ability to work and collaborate in a mixed-media team environment, to multitask in a deadline-driven newsroom and to adapt constructively and creatively to change.
• A firm grasp of current events particularly as they relate to LNP's Lancaster County area audience.
• A keen interest in and knowledge of LNP competitors and partners.
• Thorough familiarity with journalism and libel law. 
• This job requires the candidate to live in Lancaster County or the surrounding area with a combination of in office and work from home capabilities.