Senior Social Media Content Creator (Senior Public Relations Specialist)

Position Description

Vision: Seattle is a thriving and equitable community powered by dependable transportation.

Mission: To deliver a transportation system that provides safe and affordable access to places and opportunities.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is a nationally recognized municipal transportation agency at the leading edge of multi-modal transportation. In our quickly growing city, accessibility, safety, affordability, and reliability – are top of mind for us every day! Our core values drive our work toward creating an equitable, sustainable, and vibrant city for all. SDOT’s core responsibilities include maintenance and operations of the city's transportation right-of-way, the expansion of the city's bicycle and pedestrian network, care of over 240 bridges, permitting use of public spaces and enhancing access to the regional transit system. With approximately 1,200 dedicated staff, SDOT maintains an operational presence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in all weather conditions to serve and ensure Seattle’s public mobility.

Position Overview

SDOT’s Communications and Public Engagement team is looking for Senior Social Media Content Creator (under the City's classification title of Senior Public Relations Specialist). The core role will be to lead our social media services program by shaping how we communicate on our social media platforms. Your success will enable us to expand on meaningful and creative ways of communicating with the public so that anyone seeking information or following us will be able to quickly find and understand it. In this role, you’ll research, experiment, learn, solve challenges, build trust, and swivel to the needs of the department and the public. You’ll be the in-house social media lead who’ll invent and co-create inspiring and attractive on-brand strategies to capture our audience’s attention through social sharing that creatively demonstrate the scale of our work. You’ll collaborate daily with subject experts to build content that balances the goals of the team, and the information needs of the public. This position will report to the Press Secretary.

Job Responsibilities

• Steward the day-to-day front and back-end functions of running SDOT’s social media accounts.
• Sculpt articulate and attention-grabbing content that delivers useful, easy-to-skim, visually engaging, and concise information that anyone regardless of their abilities can understand. This includes writing, editing, suggesting editorial opportunities, constructing creative visuals (showing the reader instead of telling them through photographs, graphics, and video reel production), networking, scheduling, and publishing.
• Represent SDOT at the Citywide Social Media Taskforce. Share knowledge, blaze/pilot new ideas, provide updates back to the team and implement new strategies.
• Improve quality assurance and oversight of our social network sites for the highest standards and engagement. Examine analytics to pivot approaches. Take a holistic social media approach, recommend, and drive new techniques, ideas, and changes to content with an emphasis on increasing brand identity, design consistency, readability, usability, accessibility, and search optimization. This includes mobilizing translated content to communicate and build relationships with diverse community members.
• Invigorate and implement creative solutions and workarounds to elevate inclusive, responsive, and transparent communications and solve social media-related problems, challenges, and gaps. This includes triaging urgent requests, responding to comments/direct messages, and crisis communications.
• Advance methods of improving workflow. Employ industry best practices and share knowledge through the creation of tools, trainings, playbooks, guides, tutorials, workflow, etc.
• Achieve SDOT brand awareness through strategies, targeted campaigns, and ads.
• Support cross-functional communications-related responsibilities.
• Support off-site events and on-call emergency operations work.
• Support SDOT leadership on special projects, media relations, and other areas as assigned.
• Curate and edit photos using Flickr and photo-editing software.
• Support the department goals in promoting race and social justice and diversity.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Requires two (2) years professional experience in public relations, marketing, journalism, or related field involving the preparation and distribution of public information materials, and a Bachelor's degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Marketing, or related field (or a combination of education and/or training and/or experience which provides an equivalent background required to perform the work of the class).
• Current Washington State driver's license or evidence of equivalent mobility.
  

Successful candidates will possess many of these additional qualifications or be able to demonstrate comparable experience and expertise:

• Two (2) years of professional experience editing or producing content for responsive, customer-facing social media platforms.
• Two (2) years of experience working on social media networks.
• Excellent technical copywriting and copyediting skills.
• Aptitude for learning new tools and technologies quickly and teaching others.
• Self-directed, well-organized, and able to maintain high levels of production with limited supervisory oversight.
• Ability to manage several projects and meet deadlines, maintain confidentiality and a sense of humor, use good judgment and discretion, and interact with a diverse workforce.
• Experience taking command of social media content and brands for government agencies, corporations, or nonprofit organizations.
• Advanced front and back-end skills on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr.
• Advanced skills with content management systems and analytic tools (i.e., HootSuite, Sprout Social, TweetDeck, Falcon.io, Ingeniux, WordPress, SharePoint, Google Analytics, etc.)
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office products like Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, Excel, OneDrive, OneNote, Word, etc.
• Familiarity with communication applications like Survey Monkey, GovDelivery email system, MailChimp, etc.
• Editorial experience using AP Style.
• Knowledge of search optimization and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards.
• Intermediate graphic design skills and working knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite.
• Effectively work in a multi-cultural workplace with a diverse customer base.
  

Work Environment

• Most work is performed in a normal City work/office environment, including hybrid work options (at this time).
• Duties may require occasionally supporting off-site events.
• Willingness to sometimes be on-call and available to respond to major incidents outside of normal business hours, and to occasionally work early morning, evenings, or weekend shifts during significant transportation events.

Additional Information

Please attach both a cover letter and resume to your application.

Failure to do so will result in your application not being considered.

Offers of employment are contingent on verification of information provided by the applicant as part of the application process, including potential background check.

Please note this job advertisement is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

The full salary range for this position is $40.08 - $46.68 per hour.

The City of Seattle offers a comprehensive benefits package including vacation, holiday, and sick leave as well as medical, dental, vision, life and long-term disability insurance for employees and their dependents.

More information about employee benefits is available on the City's website at: https://www.seattle.gov/human-resources/benefits/employees-and-covered-family-members/most-employees-plans