The Spectator’s subscriptions are growing at the fastest rate in our 193-year history. Once, the way people discovered new publications was to browse in a shop. Now, the smartphone lets millions see our headlines – and, if they like them, read our articles. If they become hooked, they subscribe. We generate about a fifth of our traffic through social media and with subscribers having doubled to almost 100,000 we think it’s time to find someone to manage our social media full time.
The job won’t mean writing headlines (or sells): that will be done by our team of journalists. We’re looking for someone to work out what should be promoted, how, when and where. Collating and understanding analytics. And understanding how to do things in our style.
We don’t do clickbait. Our readers come to us to escape the rancour and tribalism of social media: they like reading well-argued articles with which they might disagree. We don’t seek to maximise clicks, we seek to maximise the number of people paying for our journalism. Serving existing readers is, for us, a higher priority than recruiting new ones. Subscribers come to us for three reasons: diversity of opinion, elegance of expression and independence of thought. Our social media needs to reflect that.
The job will mean working out which platforms we should be on, and how to work out if it’s working. We’d also need someone who understands news and is familiar with the magazine: what it is and (importantly) what it’s not. If a story breaks that throws fresh relevance onto a piece from our archive, then we could promote that article. We’re looking for a creative self-starter, who has an instinctive feel for how best to reach out to new and old readers.
You’ll be working with the whole Spectator team in 22 Old Queen Street: print and digital, broadcast and emails, our digital marketing team and subscriptions department. There are only a few dozen of us, and this is one of only a few appointments we’re making this year. It’s a great time to join what is now Europe’s fastest-growing magazine.
We have a no-CV policy: we don’t care where or even whether you went to university. CVs are deceptive. All that matter is aptitude, so to apply please answer three or more of the following:
- What are three biggest mistakes in the way we use social media right now?
- Tell us three tricks we are missing.
- Schedule a week of social media output for The Spectator using real stories from 48 hours of your choice.
- Which publication’s social media strategy do you think we have the most to learn from, and why?
- Should we be running animated cover videos? Explain your answer.
- Create a new image for this post to be used on social media channels.
Emails to jobs@spectator.co.uk and please copy in theeditor@spectator.co.uk
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