Our Audience Growth and Engagement Editor will contribute to key outcomes for both our editorial and business teams—growing an engaged email subscriber and paying membership base, piloting new audience growth and engagement initiatives across our platforms, and assisting with daily posting and newsletter development tasks. This is an interdisciplinary role, working in tandem with almost every person at City Paper to inspire casual readers to become loyal readers, and loyal readers to become avid fans and supporters of Washington City Paper. 

Ultimately, your guiding purpose will be to bring the perspective of our audience into the decisions that drive our journalism and our business. Responsibilities will include the following:

• Platform Strategy
  • Operate our social media channels, with an emphasis on increasing followers and engagement with our impact journalism.
  • Help plan and execute engagement campaigns to grow our newsletter subscriber lists with a goal of creating a sustainable and scalable email experience across our organization.
  • Develop organic and paid creative promotional campaigns for our newsletters, major enterprise journalism projects, news stories, membership drives and events.
  • Manage and optimize our SEO strategy to improve search performance.
  • Evaluate the viability of integrating new products and services that can serve and engage our audience.
• Audience Strategy
  • Identify the relevant audiences and individual outreach targets for each story or project, then develop and execute strategies for engaging them.
  • Determine the gaps in our readership among the people and groups most likely to engage with our reporting and develop a plan for expanding those audiences.
  • Oversee the onboarding process of our various audiences across all of our current and new platforms.
• Collaborations
  • Work with the editors to train the newsrooms in best practices for social, search, email, and other audience development tactics and to build a supportive, engaged loyal community. 
  • Develop newsroom dashboards for measuring audience engagement with our journalism.
  • Partner with editorial leaders to develop programming and distribution strategies for all social platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter (X).
  • Support our business, design, and marketing teams with sponsored posts, promotions, ad copy, and creative for special issues, membership campaigns, and new journalism issues.
• Editing and Newsletter Development
  • Work with newsletter writers to develop ideas and best practices, with the goal of increasing subscribers, engagement, and open rates.
  • Participate in editorial meetings and idea generation sessions.

Successful candidates for this position will:

• Have one-to-five years of audience development and social media experience, ideally in a newsroom
• Know how to use content management systems (we use WordPress), social media scheduling and tracking tools (Meta Business Suite, SproutSocial, etc.), and Google Analytics
• REALLY like collaborating across an organization
• Be exceptionally organized
• Have a sense of humor and a tolerance for puns, both good and bad

Base salary starting at $50,000, depending on experience. We offer great health/dental/vision benefits, a generous PTO policy, transit benefits, and opportunities for professional development.

Washington City Paper is committed to hiring and developing a diverse staff that reflects the communities we cover and aim to reach. We are an equal opportunity employer and encourage members of historically underrepresented groups—including but certainly not exclusive to people of color, people with disabilities, and those who identify as queer—to apply for this position.

Interested applicants should send a resume and cover letter describing their qualifications to editor@washingtoncitypaper.com.