Humanitarian Content and Social Media Advisor

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees delivers lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

Signpost

The Signpost Project is a rapidly scaling responsive information service, providing up to date and contextually adapted information and content to equip crisis-affected communities to know and exercise their rights, access essential services, and make informed decisions. It was developed by the IRC and Mercy Corps in 2015 to address asylum seekers’ and migrants’ pressing need for reliable information upon arrival to Greece, and is now active in 20 countries on 5 continents.

The Signpost project is at a critical point of inflection where its proven success is fueling a global expansion into 10 more countries, furthering our vision is to install a Signpost project at the heart of every major humanitarian context worldwide and make community-led, responsive information a public good for the aid sector.

JOB OVERVIEW/SUMMARY:

Humanitarian Content and Social Media Advisor

The Humanitarian Content and Social Media Advisor provides essential support, training and coaching to teams implementing Signpost programs, sharing, documenting, and adapting best practice on developing empowering content for crisis-effected communities (“new you can use”) and for reaching target audiences at scale. The successful candidate will possess a nuanced understanding of digital content optimization, utilizing this knowledge to empower displaced and crisis-affected populations in making well-informed decisions to meet their fundamental needs.

In this role, you will lead the development and implementation of editorial and social media guidelines, supporting teams in crafting strategies to effectively connect with and assist displaced and crisis-affected communities. Additionally, your expertise will extend to addressing misinformation within these communities. As an advisor, you will provide insights and recommendations on country-level processes, including publication calendars, approval workflows, triangulation, fact-checking, and the promotion of social media posts. Moreover, you will contribute to global-level tool development. The ideal candidate will demonstrate proficiency across various social media platforms, possess a knack for troubleshooting technical issues, and have a track record of managing advertisements on Meta, Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, among others. Experience with managing in-kind donations from Google and Meta, coupled with SEO expertise, will be highly advantageous.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Advise Signpost implementing teams to develop activities and approaches that allow communities to participate in the digital content production process for social media and website;

• Develop global editorial standards and best practices to ensure that content is optimized to perform well on social media and continuously coach staff in these practices;

• Establish clear, context-specific information-sharing strategies, standards, and tools, and ensure staff are trained in and able to use them;

• Create, tweak and maintain social media SOPs to ensure social media activity is driven by audience understanding and social media best practice;

• Manage social media platforms like Meta Business Manager, oversee access and Signposts assets.

• Build capacity of staff from a variety of different backgrounds on developing actionable content for crisis-affected communities; including but not limited to editorial standards, social media, content management, content mapping, etc.

• Support development of strategies to address mis- and disinformation in digital platforms.

• Apply SEO expertise to enhance content visibility and impact.

• Advise teams advertising on Meta, Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and other technological platforms.

• Identify areas of improvement of content and provide insights and recommendations on country-level processes.

• Troubleshoot technical issues across various social media platforms.

REQUIREMENTS:

• A minimum of 6 years of experience in journalism, humanitarian communications or a related field, including at least 2 years in digital content protection.

• Experience working within the humanitarian sector or with vulnerable populations in low resource environments.

• Basic understanding of the digital landscape, social media platforms, and what makes digital content work.

• Experience in capacity building on training and coaching staff from multiple different cultures, skill levels, and contexts in an advisory role.

• Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills; demonstrated ability to successfully work in a fast-paced environment within and across departments/functions/ geographic locations, and help develop positive relationships with locally and remote-based staff.

• Experience interpreting data sets and analyzing trends.

• Professional experience on supporting teams on Meta Business Manager, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), etc.

• Proficiency in English but skills in other language like French, Spanish and Arabic is advantageous.

Key Working Relationships

Position Reports to: Senior Advisor, Responsive Information Services

Position directly supervises: N/A

Other Internal and/or external contacts: Country teams, Technical Units of IRC, External Partners, and members of the Signpost Global team, including data analytics and technology focal points.

Compensation:

Posted pay ranges apply to US and UK-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.

US Benefits:

The IRC offers a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. All US employees are eligible for sick time, a 403b retirement savings plans: up to 4.5% immediately vested matching contribution, plus an 3-7% additional IRC contribution, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

In addition, full-time employees are eligible for 10 US paid holidays, 20-25 paid time off days, disability & life insurance, medical, dental, and vision insurance (employee contribution starting at $135, $7, and $5 per month respectively) and FSA for healthcare, childcare, and commuter costs. Part-time employees are eligible for a proportionate amount of paid time off. These additional benefits apply to employees who work at least 6 months within a 12 month time period.

Standard of Professional Conduct: The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.

Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.