Content Officer

Company Description

This position will service a financial services client of Publicis Groupe Africa (Power of One), but you will be housed within our agency Machine_, which runs the Content Marketing & Editorial Centre of Excellence for Publicis Groupe Africa. You will report into Machine_ and Publicis Groupe Africa’s joint Chief Content Officer.

Machine_ is a TTL creative solutions agency with strong digital roots and is home to over 75 adventurous minds in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. It is the agency’s mission to help brands find creative solutions to new challenges in a hyper-connected world, whilst at the same time building solid, long-term relationships with our clients.

Machine_’s mantra, Never Afraid, underpins our values of doing the right thing, being curious, solution orientated and at its core ‘getting things done!’. Living this mantra daily helps grow our clients’ businesses and these are the values we look for when recruiting new talent. The right personality is just as important as the right experience. We’re here to work hard and have fun.

We’re looking for an experienced and passionate Content Officer to work on one of our financial services clients. This is a permanent position, based in Jo’burg, that requires a senior person with a strong editorial background, and a wealth of experience in the realm of digital.

Job Description

Content planning, creation, editing & management

• Strategise and plan monthly content marketing schedule across digital ecosystem, including emailers, social media, website, SMS and more. Some print may be included
• Write, brief and/or commission content marketing, ensuring best-in-class experts are contributing to content creation where relevant. You must be able to write and edit content marketing yourself, too.
• Commission writers and maintain a good freelance base of expert writers to contribute as needed, relevant to client’s business and areas of expertise.
• Brief the content marketing elements into design studio and manage the process, with guidance for creative look and feel. Oversee overall quality, brand CI adherence and excellence.
• Conceptualise and write copy for content marketing elements as required by the client.
• Understand SEO best practice and apply within content marketing creation across mediums.
• Strong writing skills to ensure style is consistent and that complicated topics are clearly explained to audience.
• Ability to plan and edit content to take it to the next level, including turning articles into infographics, generating increasingly interactive and personalised content (like quizzes, gamification etc.)
• Strong understanding of Google and Facebook analytics; able to compile reports on content performance for clients and present these to key stakeholders monthly.
• Deliver content marketing excellence for all clients, adhering to editorial best practice and understanding how the content marketing you create and oversee drives ROI within a client’s broader marketing and business efforts. Collaborate content marketing efforts closely with the client’s other marketing efforts to ensure synergy and maximum impact. Be comfortable driving content marketing best practice holistically for the client.
• Manage content budgets and timings, with the support of client service team.

Strategy

• Lead content marketing strategy for clients across digital platforms and channels. Be seen as their partner and thought leader in this area. Contribute to their wider business discussion, forums and projects with this POV.
• Take briefs from clients or potential clients, perform content audits and reviews and provide content marketing strategy, across print and digital.
• Support teams in pitches by providing strategic content thinking for a variety of potential clients.
• Constantly review the content marketing strategy you are implementing with your clients and optimise for best results; ensure all content produced is insights-led and performance-based.
• Advise on content marketing and digital content best practice, for both in-house team and clients.
• Understand and input to clients’ overall digital marketing strategies; excellence grasp of how content marketing fits into this matrix for clients, and how content marketing contributes to overall digital marketing growth, ROI and best practice.

Relationship & network

• Grow meaningful, trust-based relationships with clients to ensure long-lasting business agreements that deliver on client needs.
• Manage client relationships and place the client at the heart of your work.
• Identify new business opportunities and nurture relationships with key stakeholders to allow for business growth.
• Build trust-filled relationships within your team and among your peers at the agency so that you are both a pleasure to work with, and you enjoy working with those around you.
• Manage any junior staff members allocated to your team, including mentoring their professional growth and becoming invested in their future at the agency.

Requirements

• Strong editorial and communications background across multiple platforms
• Strong digital strategy understanding
• Ability to multitask and plan across a range of projects
• Solid time management skills
• Ability to work independently and make things happen
• Ability to bring creative thinking to a range of different marketing and content opportunities. Need to think out of the box!
• Very strong English language writing and editing skills
• Ability to be firm in one’s beliefs on what makes great content
• People person, with good problem-solving skills and the ability to represent the agency in front of clients
• Be a strong leadership figure
• Confident reporting and presenting to key clients
• Comfortable planning, writing/editing for and briefing teams on a range of content pillars, including content for clients in financial services
• Well-versed in digital content marketing best-practice and strategy, from mainstream social media channels and websites to digital magazines, WhatsApp and more
• Strong journalistic network of content writers, creators and producers for commissioning work
• Be fundamentally passionate about the power of content and content marketing, be excited by delivering great work to clients, and be willing to go above and beyond, outside of the 9-to-5
• Creatively minded and able to assist with creative direction

Additional Information

Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Should you not hear from us within 2 weeks after submitting your application, please consider your application as unsuccessful

Publics group is proud to be an Equal opportunity employer and prohibits any forms of Discrimination or Harassment. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all our employees in line with our Employment Equity plan. All appointments will be based on Qualifications, experience and best fit but preference will be given to all affirmation action candidates or designated groups.