Who are we?

South Western Railway (SWR) operates over 1,500 services each weekday across the network and employs more than 5,000 people. We provide easy and convenient mobility, connecting people and communities in South West London, southern counties of England and the Isle of Wight.

Join our team and help us continue to improve quality of life, by bringing people together to get the most out of life.

SWR is part of FirstGroup, the largest rail operator in the UK and second largest bus operator in the UK outside London. FirstGroup operates services throughout the UK and Ireland, with over 30,000 employees providing services that make travel smoother and life easier. FirstGroup works hard to reduce its impact on the environment, introducing cleaner and more environmentally responsible methods of transport.

About the job:

We are seeking a detail-oriented and creative individual to take ownership of our social media strategy and digital content to drive organic traffic.

This role is responsible for developing, executing, and managing our social media and digital content initiatives to drive brand awareness, engagement, and audience growth across various platforms.

The Social and Digital Content Manager will implement the social media strategy, develop and implement a continuous roadmap of improvements and performance for the digital content published through our public-facing digital communications channels: primarily our social media channels and the South Western Railway (SWR) website.

Working in partnership with other digital and marketing team members across the commercial function of SWR including the communications team, as well as with other internal functions and external agencies, the role holder will plan, implement, measure, and optimise digital content projects and campaigns, providing expert insight and advice across the web.

Be responsible for delivering the strategy, creating, editing, and publishing content that informs, engages, and drives results for our audiences.

They will also work with the Senior Digital Manager, Senior Campaign Manager and the External Communications lead to develop a high-level, progressive digital content strategy, which they will implement.

This content is needed to engage with customers in a factual and compelling way, providing the latest information and inspiration to our customers and then ultimately driving revenue and repeat visits.

It is envisaged that in future the role holder will manage one direct report, with dotted line responsibility for a video producer

This is a key role in a fast-changing environment, often with tight timelines.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Social media

Deliver the social media strategy across SWR social channels
Coordinate and liaise with various functions across the South Western Railway business to make sure
Work with wider teams to ensure social media content is aligned to other activity in the business
Create, curate and manage content across social media channels and managing social media campaigns, including setting KPIs
Using analytics to measure campaign effectiveness and identify trends producing regular reports on performance
Engaging with customers and other stakeholders, and responding to questions and feedback
Keeping up with social media trends and applying a test and learn programme to new features
Collaborating and working with other departments, such as marketing, public relations & communications and recruitment

Digital Content

Lead on social and website content, advising and actioning content development and optimisation
Provide service to departments across the business to enhance and develop high performing content in-line with company objectives, strategy and plans
Working with our agencies and internal colleagues (CRM and campaigns) to deliver a content calendar that harnesses content from all areas of the business, communities and third-party partnerships by working collaboratively with the Marketing, Communications, Customer Experience and Revenue Development teams to understand their content requirements
Work collaboratively with other members of the marketing team and the wider business to identify where new content is needed, or optimising existing content and user journeys
Generate new ideas for content and assets that bring the brand vision and values to life through engaging community projects, working with internal colleagues, external agencies, stakeholders and the regional communities
Deliver website content collaborating with colleagues across the business to ensure key information is scheduled/up to date, delivering two content audits every year making sure the functions across SWR are updating relevant information
Work with wider teams to ensure all content is aligned to other activity in the business
Set standards in content production across digital channels
Support and where needed own the management of the relationship between SWR and the agencies/partners that deliver content & enhancements and reporting providers, ensuring optimisation of service
Provide expert advice on digital content best practice
Proven social and digital copywriting skills and hands on experience of working with content management systems

Content Performance

Analyse content performance metrics and suggest improvements for content engagement
Create and enhance performance evaluation and improvement cycles, with a focus on content performance on website user engagement/conversion
Work with the Senior Digital Manager to create a progressive and actionable digital reporting function connecting social media media channels, web content, brand experience, and digital performance across all owned / channels
Work collaboratively with the Senior Digital Manager and Digital Manager to ensure decisions about the ongoing development of the site supports the business digital content strategy
Apply SEO best practices to optimize website content for search engine visibility

Content Standards

Ensuring our digital content is consistent, taking an active lead in developing and managing our approach
Maintain a consistent brand voice and style throughout all website content
Ensuring that digital content procedures and guidelines for website content are followed and enhanced, including best practice is adhered to and quality control functions are in place
Work with the Senior Digital Manager to develop relevant procedures for content management, creation and stewardship to protect the company's brand reputation
Conduct thorough proofreading and editing tasks to ensure content accuracy and clarity

Additional responsibilities:

Engage in continuous personal and professional development to ensure digital marketing skills are cutting edge/current and to support the development of others
Need to be flexible in approach and work proactively to deliver content uploads and amends, sometimes at short notice
With the rest of the Marketing team act as a brand guardian in terms of look and feel of content, and tone of voice of copy
Ad-hoc requests including but not limited to: input into the wider website development plan, testing developments prior to release, providing ideas for campaigns, input and support for app content

As a minimum, you will need to have:

Degree educated ideally in a related subject such as Marketing or English
May have advanced diploma and/or technical qualification
Experience of:
- Working in a similar digital content role
- Collaboration to create high-quality and high-performing digital content on various channels
- Effective planning, implementation and measurement of digital content projects
- Managing and developing social media channels
- Working effectively with stakeholders of various levels
- Analysing performance metrics/data and producing actionable insights within a website, and social media environment
- Website content management systems ideally Sitecore
- Image resizing tools such as Canva
- Excellent written and spoken communication skills
- Understanding of online copywriting and how it impacts search engine optimization
- Self-motivated, pro-active and team-orientated
- Excellent organisational skills, with the ability to deliver against plans and targets
- Must be customer focused balanced with commercial acumen
- A strong relationship builder with internal colleagues and external stakeholders, ensuring collaboration and business partnering
- Experienced with using digital tracking tools and providing insights, performance data and analysis back to the business
- Brand ambassador who cares about brand integrity and who can actively use the brand guidelines

About the location:

South Western Railways HQ is based on the 4th Floor at South Bank Central, a stone's throw from the River Thames and a 10 minute walk from our busiest station, Waterloo. It is local to many well-known attractions, restaurants and retail facilities and is easily accessible by public transport.

Working pattern:

Working an average of 37 hours per week

Monday to Friday office hours with flexibility

The Reward:

In return we offer a competitive salary and a variety of valuable benefits, including:

Free duty and leisure travel on SWR services for employee
Free leisure travel for spouse/partner and dependants (criteria dependant)
75% discount on many other train operating companies
Full training and support with development
Large range of exclusive retail offers
Excellent pension scheme

We all belong at SWR. FirstGroup's vision is to provide an inclusive environment for all colleagues, across its group of businesses, ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to access meaningful employment.

We value our differences such as age, gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, and disability. We maintain a zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice towards our colleagues, customers, and future talent.

We celebrate and encourage diversity of thought, progressive ways of working and seeing all our colleagues grow and thrive.

We review all roles and job descriptions to ensure they are accessible and, where possible, we support and provide flexible working options; we recommend that you refer to each vacancy description for further details.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, please follow the links below. We encourage you to share any additional needs you may require so we can provide a fair and equal process for all who apply.

South Western Railway

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Social and Digital Content Manager