Job details

Senior Manager, Social Media

The salary range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Pay Range: $96,400.00 - $154,300.00

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Job Profile Summary:

The Senior Manager, Social Media is responsible for driving the strategy and execution of the university’s owned social media efforts, including developing and implementing plans and strategies and integrating the social media initiatives of all WGU departments to generate awareness, website visits, and prospective students for university growth. Includes managing the production calendar and schedule for testimonials, articles, white papers, and ebooks to support college initiatives and will require close collaboration with the college marketing directors and communication leads to align content needs to MarCom initiatives. Social media work will also include promotion of content through native placements that align to university objectives and KPIs.

This role will also own the strategy and execution of earned social media for the university, directly managing a team who is responsible for increasing awareness and interest of a prospective student audience as well as connecting with higher education, policy, and media influencers, among others. The incumbent will work closely with other social media stakeholders across the university to ensure all social media audiences, channels, and posts align to WGU brand standards, attributes, and voice, and manage the university social media calendar, meeting with audience owners and stakeholders regularly to review posting schedules and university alignment.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

Create and execute social media strategies that drive university, college, and region priorities with owned media opportunities.
Recruit, train, and develop a high-performing team.
Establish processes for effective and efficient collaboration across the MarCom team and with other key stakeholders.
Lead and manage social media planning, strategy, integration, and implementation for the university.
Create and maintain WGU’s social media plan.
Collaborate with other departments to integrate social media efforts.
Develop content for social media, including articles, posts, and video.
Develop ideas and strategies for social media stories and content.
Brainstorm and develop social media plans.
Support MarCom by providing editing and proofreading support.
Build relationships of trust with leaders across the university; facilitate strong cross-organizational information sharing and cooperative strategy development.
Fulfill a high-level MarCom strategy role, understanding how efforts with content and social media work together and in support of paid marketing efforts.
Be a vocal, engaged expert in all social media activities and understand how these activities influence and support other marketing and communications initiatives. Work cross-functionally and collaboratively across MarCom functions to align plans.
Closely monitor and manage owned social media accounts; quickly identify issues and work with cross-org partners to resolve, including escalating as appropriate.
Assist with setting college-specific and university-wide performance targets, and provide regular reporting, forecasts, and root-cause insights to inform ongoing adjustments to drive KPIs.
Drive college-specific and university-wide initiatives, partnering with various teams across MarCom to translate strategies into tactical execution.
Work closely with the internal and agency creative teams to ensure that content requests are accurate, on time, and on brand.
Work closely with Director of Brand Marketing, Creative Director, Sr. Director of External Communications, and external media and creative agencies to ensure all content and owned/earned media align to the WGU brand standards, attributes, and voice. Develop and manage content and social media guidelines for brand protection and evangelism.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

Experience managing cross-functional teams, vendors, and technology providers.
Exceptional communication ability. Must be able to clearly and persuasively communicate both verbally and in writing with cross-functional teams and staff at all levels of the university.
Strong quantitative and strategic analysis skills. Must be able to gather and analyze data and research identify significant trends, implications, and opportunities in earned media.
Exceptional project management and organization skills.
Drive and ability to influence others to act without direct reporting authority.
Brand, editorial, content, and social media experience.

Minimum Qualifications:

Meaningful stakeholder management experience.
Demonstrated track record of managing multiple complex projects at one time.
Bachelor’s degree in marketing, Communications, or a related field.
7+ years of experience in marketing roles.
Familiarity with best practices across multiple social platforms (including but not limited to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok) and CMS platforms (including but not limited to Sprout Social, HootSuite).

Preferred Qualifications:

Editorial and content development experience.
Experience managing vendor relationships and technology platforms.
Experience with Meltwater.

Physical Requirements:

Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

Disclaimer: This Job Description has been designed to indicate the general nature, essential duties, and responsibilities of work performed by employees within this classification. It does not contain a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications that are required of the employee to do this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. This Job Description does not constitute a contract of employment and the University may exercise its employment-at-will rights at any time.

As an equal opportunity employer, WGU recognizes that our strength lies in our people. We are committed to diversity.

By Western Governors University

To do this, the governors enlisted the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) to help design the newly envisioned university. Five themes remained central ...

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FUNDING

Nonprofit

INDUSTRY

Colleges & Universities

TEAM SIZE

5001-10000

LOCATION

Hybrid, based in Salt Lake City, UT

DATE POSTED