Sfgate Audience Engagement Editor

Full Time Job
SFGATE Audience Engagement Editor

Under the direction of SFGATE's editor-in-chief, the audience engagement editor will be a versatile strategist with a deep understanding of how people consume news (search, social, newsletter) and the know-how to lead strategies around increasing those news consumers across the board. The audience engagement editor will be able to sift through a treasure trove of analytics and be able to pick out the important trend lines (good and bad) and be able to identify ways to influence them - and work with a team search, social, and newsletter leads both locally in San Francisco, and at Hearst's central team in New York.

Why SFGATE?

Launched in 1994, SFGATE.com was one of the first large-market media sites in the world and served as the exclusive digital home of the San Francisco Chronicle for 19 years. In 2019, the Chronicle (which can now be found online at the paywalled sfchronicle.com) and SFGATE officially became two separately run entities with their own editorial staffs and independent newsrooms.

Today, SFGATE is a digital-only publication that reaches more than 28 million readers every month and tells the stories of the people, places and ideas that make San Francisco, and the Bay Area at large, the weird and wonderful place that it is. We help readers navigate their day, whether it's by keeping them updated on big breaking news, guiding them to interesting local experiences or sharing a part of the Bay they haven't seen before.

The site is home to seven verticals: Culture, offering a unique mix of the entertainment news you actually need, and the underground stories from hidden corners of the Bay Area you want; Local, the premier destination for everything that life in San Francisco encompasses (from wildly expensive real estate to schools to what it's like to live above a raucous bar); Sports, covering the intersection of sports and culture; Travel, covering everything from flight deals and travel news to hotel hacks and under-the-radar day trips; Politics, where we keep you up to speed on all local, state and national politics that have implications in the Bay Area; Food Drink, where we tell you the backstory of the people behind the bar and in the kitchen; and News; plus, SFGATE has satellite editors covering Lake Tahoe, California Parks, the Central Coast, Hawaii, and Disneyland.

What you'll do:
• Consistently have new ideas - we want someone who is a problem solver, and who can help us find new, unique ways to ensure importantly, impactful stories reach the audiences they're intended for. Every week, day, and hour at SFGATE produces new challenges, we want someone who can help us find creative solutions.

• Be autonomous - this is a position that comes with a lot of trust, to communicate with several different leads across the organization, meet deadlines, to understand analytics and proactively identify traffic issues that may have been inadvertently triggered.

• Be a problem solver - solving big problems or opportunities as they arrive is a huge part of this role, but almost as big is being able to parse the day-to-day analytics reporting that could signal a change in Google search, a newsletter with big potential if we were to make one significant tweak, or a missed social opportunity.

• Be organized - you'll partner with our site leads for projects both big and small, all intended to introduce our content to new readers and build loyalty with our existing readers in a variety of ways. We need someone who can keep it all straight and be able to shift from one task to another without missing a beat.

Who you are:
• 5 years of experience overseeing SEO, social, and/or newsletter strategy, preferably in a digital news environment

• You're based in the Bay Area and/or willing to relocate

• You have strong attention to detail and a journalist's sense of editorial integrity

• You have strong communication skills, in particular, the ability to translate analytics and patterns on into insights and recommendations for social, search and newsletter leads

• A collaborative attitude and eagerness to work in partnership with site leaders

• A willingness to vocally advocate for the audience POV in editorial decision-making settings

• Management experience, especially training/managing younger managers

• Experience with social tools such as Chartbeat, Looker, Google Analytics, SocialFlow, and ESPs like Sailthru

• You've read SFGATE and have an understanding of the brand and voice

As part of its continued efforts to maintain a safe workplace for employees, Hearst Newspapers requires that all employees who receive a written offer of employment be fully vaccinated (as defined by the CDC) against the coronavirus by the first day of employment as a condition of employment, to the extent permitted by applicable law. Hearst Newspapers will consider requests for reasonable accommodations on an individual basis in accordance with applicable legal requirements