Associate Director, Social Content & Engagement

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, SOCIAL CONTENT & ENGAGEMENT At Bader Rutter, our Social Content & Engagement team is all about engagement. We create social content that people stop for, interact with and remember, so when our clients’ audiences are ready to buy, our clients are the brands they think of first. Our goal is to be the agency that sets the standard for engaging social in the categories we serve. As Associate Director, Social Content & Engagement, you’ll lead social strategy and content creation that grows engaged audiences across a portfolio of primarily B2B brands in petcare, manufacturing and food and beverage. This is a player-coach role. You’ll set the strategy, raise the creative bar and stay close enough to the work to develop, build and ship content alongside the creative team. You’re equal parts strategist, content creator, trend spotter and team builder. You know B2B buying cycles are long and that audiences are people first. You know how to create content that earns their attention today and keeps your clients top of mind until they’re ready to make a decision. What You’ll Do: Strategy & Growth

• Develop platform-specific social strategies tied to client business goals while identifying cultural moments, creator trends and whitespace opportunities
• Monitor audience analytics and platform signals to continuously refine strategy and stay ahead of how audiences consume social
• Partner with Paid Social and leaders across strategy, creative, PR and media to develop integrated solutions to client challenges

Content, Creators & Community

• Lead social campaigns from initial brief through post-campaign analysis while pushing creative boundaries and raising the editorial bar
• Champion video, Stories and Shorts as core social formats while working with production partners and creators
• Lead creator and influencer strategy, including managing amplification vendors and developing in-house programs from talent identification and contracts through execution
• Guide community management and social listening to build brand affinity, surface audience insights and identify emerging opportunities

Measurement & Leadership

• Define measurement frameworks with the Analytics team and translate performance data into clear insights and recommendations for senior client stakeholders
• Grow clients’ social programs with share-worthy content that drives engagement and exceeds performance benchmarks
• Lead, coach and develop social content specialists and community managers while managing team resourcing and workloads
• Oversee social media budgets, including creator spend
• Lead agency education and training on platform trends, technologies and best practices

What You’ll Bring:

• A bachelor’s degree and 10+ years of related experience, including at least 7 years leading social strategy and teams with accountability for results, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
• Mastery of social content creation and creative oversight with strong editorial judgment
• A track record of leading and developing social practitioners with clear ownership of outcomes
• Hands-on experience growing engagement across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Reddit and YouTube expertise is a bonus.
• Proficiency with social content creation and social listening tools such as Canva, Adobe Photoshop Express, Hootsuite, Talkwalker and Brandwatch
• Experience managing creator relationships, talent-driven content and the integration of organic and paid social
• Fluency with short-form and long-form video and experience working with production partners
• Experience building measurement frameworks and presenting performance, learnings and recommendations to senior stakeholders
• Strong relationship-building, budget management and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities
• An obsessive curiosity about platform trends, creator strategies and cultural conversations with a drive to test new ideas and formats
• Experience in agriculture, petcare, manufacturing, foodservice, food and beverage or other technical or regulated categories is a plus

Location: Milwaukee or Chicago Travel: Expected to travel more than 10% based on client assignments and other factors. Salary Range: $100,000-$120,000 annually The provided salary range is a good faith estimate of what we expect to pay for this hire. The actual salary offered will be influenced by candidate experience and other job and market-related factors. In addition to the base salary, our comprehensive benefits package includes medical, dental and vision insurance with HSA and FSA options, disability and life/AD&D, accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity insurance, pet insurance, identity theft protection, unlimited virtual telemedicine and mental health counseling, 401(k) including company matching, flexible paid time off, paid holidays, paid parental leave and much more.