Mandate

Reporting to the Senior Director, Marketing & Communications, the Social Media Issues and Strategy Specialist plays an integral role to protect UVic’s brand reputation and to support the institution to achieve its strategic objectives. Through issues communications, central social media strategy and content creation, the role promotes and protects UVic’s brand, including during times of crisis and events with reputational risk. This role drives engagement and impactful storytelling among priority audiences and markets online; the work raises UVic’s profile, builds brand affinity and contributes to the success of institutional social media channels.

Objectives

- Protect, strengthen and enhance the university's reputation through proactive social media issues management and strategic social media response planning
- Lead the development and evolution of the university's social media central channel strategy
- Strengthen institutional alignment and provide strategic communications support to executive leadership during issues, crises and emergencies
- Advance continuous improvement through monitoring, analysis, evaluation and reporting
- Build and maintain trusted partnership across campus to support coordinated and effective social media communications

This work may occur outside of regular business hours (i.e. evenings, weekends or extended weekday hours) during peak periods or when UCAM is involved in high-profile, complex social media issues communications.

Requirements

This position requires a level of education, training and experience equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in communications, advertising, marketing, public relations, journalism or relevant discipline plus a minimum of 3 years of relevant experience. An equivalent level of education, training and experience may be considered.

Minimum of 3 years of social media communication and marketing experience including:





- Monitoring and responding to emergencies and reputational issues via social media
- Developing and implementing corporate or institutional social media strategies, differentiated by audience and with measurable outcomes
- Developing and implementing corporate or institutional social media campaigns to manage reputational issues
- Tracking the success of digital media campaigns by measuring social media key performance indicators, Google Analytics, etc.
- Developing strong working relationships and partnerships, and working collaboratively at all levels and areas within an organization, including at the executive level on both confidential and public issues of reputational concern

Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities

- Commitment to valuing diversity and contributing to an inclusive and respectful working and learning environment.
- Strong understanding of reputational, labour relations and employee relations risks and the role of strategic communications in supporting institutional objectives
- Demonstrated skill in strategic use of digital media platforms (Hootsuite, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, BlueSky, etc.) and online social media advertising platforms (e.g., Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads Manager)
- Understanding of the demographics, behaviour and conventions of respective platforms’ participants and how each platform can be optimally deployed in different scenarios to achieve an organization’s goals and objectives
- Knowledge of social media marketing campaign management optimization practices across Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram and other social media applications
- Familiarity with post-secondary education structure and culture (an asset)
- Experience writing briefing notes and reports for senior executives
- Ability to collaborate, build and maintain positive relationships with diverse individuals and work effectively in a team setting

📌 Social Media Issues and Strategy Specialist (Victoria)
🏢 University of Victoria
📍 Victoria