Paid Social Manager – Lead

This is an exciting position, partly because it’s for a new department and partly because of the thrill that comes with #agencylife. (Sound the trumpets) We are building out our Paid Social team (yay! ). And we’re looking for an energetic, data-driven Paid Social Media Manager Social.

The ideal candidate has 4-5 years of experience managing paid social budgets of over $1M per month and understands what it takes to help brands of all sizes break through and DOMINATE the social landscape to grab and keep the attention of their audiences. If you’re an experienced, organized, and dare we say INNOVATIVE social media manager, read on.

Let’s start with the highlights – a bit about you and the skill set and behaviors you’ll need in this role!

• 4-5 years of recent Paid Social experience Experience working with $1M+ monthly ad spends
• Extensive experience with app install campaigns
• Great written communication skills, experience writing effective ( also important) ad copy
• Strong organizational skills with the ability to prioritize time + workload efficiently
• Great attention to detail & exceptionally strong with numbers & analysis
• Recent Shopping/Catalog Sales campaign and feed management experience a plus
• Certified Facebook Blueprint Media Buyer or Planner preferred
• Google Analytics and other professional certifications a plus
• A passion (or obsession – tomato, tomahto) for digital performance marketing and drive to grow within the industry

Cool, so…
You should have experiential expertise of exactly how Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, and the other major (and emerging) social platforms work. We want you to be knowledgeable, sure. But we’re more in the market for someone who has a healthy(ish) obsession with outsmarting those ever-changing social algorithms to help brands surf the tides of social trends, not be carried away by them.

You should know (read, NEED to know) how to (re)structure campaigns to optimize performance and drive down CPA (important). Equally important to your technical paid social chops is your ability to communicate your analysis and recommendations to colleagues and clients.

The vibe of our ideal candidate is… someone who works hard and works smart. It’s important that you’re fun to work with and easy to get along with. Be helpful! Why? Because no one likes being around someone who sucks, regardless of how talented they are. Plus, you’re going to spend a ton of time in client-facing situations and we need you to be a charming genius that our clients see as a gem. Right? All agreed there?

In client-facing situations… you are able to speak confidently on the value of our work. You’ll be explaining the benefits of our optimizations, and simplifying complex strategies so that even the most data-driven of people, those who may or may not have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed and maybe haven’t yet had their bulletproof coffee, can easily understand the value we bring.

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• ️ You’ll start out in this role with some rigorous training, learning the ins and outs of our business. We need you to be the expert who knows every strategy inside and out. Blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back.

‍ You’ll be working closely with the account management and new business teams to learn what their clients need and understand the important characteristics we referenced earlier like follower counts, engagement ratios, blog traffic, etc.

Analyze and resolve diverse, complex issues via an in-depth knowledge of paid social media strategy and delivery across paid social platforms including, but not limited to: Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok.

Conduct ongoing analysis of industry or changing trends

‍ Work closely with Paid Media Managers and associates to foster and mentor their growth.

✔️ Support of the new business team and internal Paid Media Team needs.

Engage in all aspects of paid social media, including platform capabilities, targeting opportunities, pricing formats, and bidding strategies.

Build and execute Paid Social Strategies for Fortune 500 Brands from conceptual planning to tactical recommendations, including flighting, LTV, cost per acquisition goals, and budgets.

Communicate internally within teams to ensure success across all paid media campaigns and SEO efforts.

Prepare, research and present paid media plans working with a variety of external clients and industries.

Develop and deliver client reporting on a weekly, monthly & quarterly basis Interpret, analyze and make optimization recommendations against paid social media campaigns and database metrics

And that’s basically it.

Here is a fun visual breakdown of the qualities and characteristics (related to this role) that we find important when hiring. (There are more qualities listed below that we feel are more global… these are specific to the Strategist role.)

• We provide the usual benefits: ‍ ️ Medical, Dental, and Vision. (The medical insurance is through Aetna, which is really pretty good.)
• We just started doing 401K’s (with a pretty sweet match, too)! Yay!
• We are all remote now, thanks to COVID-19… so that might be a perk if you hate commuting.
• If we ever decide to have an office again, you can be darn sure it’ll be super cool-looking and dog-friendly!
• We’re a small company without the typical corporate hoops… People who perform well end up advancing quickly.

• We’re a team of 50.
• We’re growing.
• We’re about as scattered as a team can be… East Coast, West Coast, the middle of the country… a bunch of us are in Canada, 1 in Ukraine, 1 in Russia… we like to keep our options open in terms of company retreat locations.
• About half of us are really funny.
• We’re currently working with some pretty amazing brands: Famous Footwear, Zenni Optical, KISS, Lenox, a big chain of malls (I don’t think I’m allowed to say who), a big toilet brand (again… I don’t think I’m allowed to say who, but you probably sit on this brand every morning), Honest Co., Hershey, Yelp… just to name a few.

We’re a pretty down-to-earth bunch, so if you’re interested in applying, in lieu of an elaborate cover letter, you can email me at Atul@theshelf.com, and include bullet points with the info requested in the next section…

• The job you are applying for.
• A link to your Linkedin profile.
• What job site sent you our way.
• Your location.
• Your phone number.
• A rundown on how experienced you are with the influencer marketing space… Have you worked with them? Have you done client work in the influencer space? Stuff like that.
• A summary of why you feel like you’d be good for this role.
• A note about your agency experience, if you have any (and why #agencylife is for you). Or, if you don’t have agency experience, why you thrive in this sort of fast-paced environment.
• Please let me know what sort of salary you have in mind. I’d hate to waste your time if you’re wanting a salary that’s beyond the realm of possibility for us.
• Some links to influencers who you think are weird and wonderful.

Tips on how to get your application noticed (assuming that’s what you’re shooting for):

• Applications that are submitted using a job site (instead of being emailed to the above email address) will not be considered.
• Please don’t have typos. (#FunLittleTip: Install Grammarly. It’s a game-changer.)
• It would be great if you could try to sound cool. We write in a colloquial, one-with-the-people-while-still-being-basically-grammatically-correct style. And while this style of writing is not a requirement, keep in mind that we receive a decent number of applicants every day, and 90% of those applications are boring AF. The ones that have a fun “voice” and quirky writing style immediately stand out. In a good way.
• Lastly, put yourself in the shoes of the person in charge of interviewing… What do you think that person would want to hear? Talk about that stuff and leave off anything that isn’t super relevant.

Generally speaking, a lot of you will probably find this job post in line with your skill set, and I bet a lot of you probably have the skills necessary to perform the requirements of this role. But… the characteristics that define what it’s like to actually work with you are also very important to us. Think of these requirements more in terms of culture-fit requirements:

Our company has a very fast-paced environment. It might feel disorganized from time to time because we’re also a small company. We need each employee to be the type of person who can go with the flow. Who can adjust quickly. Who is able to embrace chaos with open arms when it decides to waltz through the door.

Due to the aforementioned fast-paced environment, you should be the type of person who is able to execute quickly… within time constraints. WHILE still maintaining quality. We don’t ask for the impossible. But what we don’t want to see are projects that are slapped together and riddled with issues when we’re in a time crunch. Instead, we’d like to see people make adjustments and figure out how to make it work. We’re looking for resourceful people who approach projects with that there’s-more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat attitude.

I’ve never interviewed anyone who has said that they have bad work ethic… but there’s a big difference between people who show up and do what gets assigned to them, and those who take initiative… Those people who take pride in their projects and who go above and beyond because they have that drive for personal achievement and growth. We don’t want to micro-manage. We want to work with self-motivated people who are neurotic about quality.

✅ People who don’t proofread drive me nuts!

While I feel like I shouldn’t have to mention this, we’ve worked with people in the past who ran around like a bunch of crazed loose cannons… yelling at coworkers, constantly complaining, deploying the cold-shoulder on a regular basis… passive aggressive. So if you’re not a nice person… that won’t really work for us. We really need everyone to exude positivity.

You need to be receptive to feedback. This is a quality that we find candidates have trouble self-assessing. But try hard, because we give feedback when needed. We’re too small of a company to just let people do whatever they want to do. (Side-note… no one loves feedback. That’s fine. I don’t either really. But will you take it nicely? Will you incorporate it? Are you going to be passive aggressive while doing it? Have you ever been told not to “cut off your nose to spite your face”? These are questions you should ask yourself).

Influencer marketing is constantly changing, so we’re looking for people who are curious and eager to learn. Let’s say, for example, a client mentions in passing how they’re doing whitelisting on Instagram (and we’ll assume you don’t know what that means). Are you going to just nod your head and say you understand it when you don’t? Or, are you going to jot down a note, do some research, and become a whitelisting expert for the next client conversation? Because we need the latter.

‍ If you’re working remotely, you need to actually be working. No one likes a freeloader.

Are you ambitious? It’s not a requirement, but if you are… there’s lots of room for career growth. Plus, we like to hire our managers from within the team, so there is a very clear path to the next level (if that’s of interest to you).

Here at The Shelf, we truly believe it’s our differences that have allowed us to come together and form such a cohesive and all-encompassing whole. Our mission as a company is to help our clients stand out amongst the crowd… to be different and impactful. And since we’re a team made up of diverse people with all different backgrounds and experiences, we’re able to do this naturally. ‍ ️‍ ️‍ ️‍ ️‍ ️‍ ️

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.

I could honestly go on and on (because I’m long-winded, in case you couldn’t tell that by now), but I’m going to stop here. The point is, you gotta have the chops AND play well with others. And if you’re giddy already, feeling like this job description is just so dead-on-b*lls accurate for you, perfect! We can’t wait to hear from you.

If you’re lacking a skill or two but still feel pumped, feel free to mention it in your cover letter. We’re a small company that’s big into personal growth and supporting up-and-coming go-getters!

It’s also worth noting right here that we have our hands full running campaigns, guys. So, we will only contact those candidates who are most likely to be a good fit for the role. We’ll respond quickly when that’s the case. But if you don’t hear from us, please don’t feel slighted. Rally on – there’s a role out there that’s probably a better fit for your awesome skillset.

Oh, and one last thing… Please add the word Toggle to your subject line when applying so that I know you read this entire post.