Head of Digital Communications

Post summary

This is an exciting senior position for an exceptional digital communications manager who wants to work for a high-impact campaigning NGO. In this role, you’ll have the opportunity to lead and grow the digital channels of one of the UK’s leading rights NGOs. We’re looking for someone with a vision to help take our digital reach to the next level, whilst respecting supporters’ privacy.

Big Brother Watch is a leading voice in the UK protecting privacy and free speech, and has a strong track record of successful campaigns that defend civil liberties in the UK. In this role, you’ll work closely with the Director and Head of Advocacy to build campaigns that respond to pressing threats to our freedoms. You’ll devise strategies to run successful digital campaigns including mass mobilisation; you’ll curate the supporter journey for our network of 100,000 email subscribers; you’ll manage and produce highly engaging content including long and short form videos and graphics for our social media channels; and you’ll lead our digital fundraising.

About you

The right candidate will have strong experience in a similar role and a proven track record in social media management, content/video production and digital fundraising.

You’ll have experience working across a range of digital channels, including social media and video, website CMS, and email marketing platforms such as MailChimp. We are looking for someone who will diligently uphold our brand identity and voice; who is self-motivated, resourceful, and a proactive team player. You will be flexible, able to work under pressure and thrive managing a busy and sometimes competing workload.

If this sounds like you, and you’re passionate and committed to Big Brother Watch’s mission (this is essential), we’d like to hear from you.

This is a broad role and you may not have experience in every area listed, but if you are a creative, digital-first communicator who is eager to grow and make an impact contact us.

Big Brother Watch

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change. And we fight to win.

We’re a fiercely independent, diverse, non-partisan and non-profit group of campaigners and researchers who work to roll back the surveillance state and protect rights in parliament, the media or the courts if we have to. We publish unique investigations and pursue powerful public campaigns to pursue real change. We work relentlessly to inform and empower the public to collectively reclaim privacy, defend our civil liberties and protect freedoms for the future.

We’re a small, dedicated and highly effective team of seven full-time staff and five volunteers.

Person specification

• Passion for Big Brother Watch’s mission


• Experience of managing website CMS, basic HTML


• Experience in developing and managing newsletter strategy to drive engagement and support campaign goals


• Strong understanding of social media, particularly X, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, including best practice and trends


• Strong working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, particularly Premiere Pro, Photoshop, InDesign, and After Effects


• Hands-on experience shooting video content for campaigns or social media


• Experience of producing impactful copy for campaigns, including on sensitive and nuanced issues


• Demonstrable experience using digital skills for campaigns and/or fundraising


• Good understanding of the political climate


• Ability to translate technical information into easy to understand persuasive content and create engaging messaging for a variety of audiences across multiple digital channels


• Ability to monitor trends and identify creative opportunities that support campaign objectives


• Ability to monitor, analyse and report on performance data


• Strong organisational skills with ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines


• Friendly, positive and adaptable team player

Desirable:

• 5+ years experience in digital campaigns, marketing or communications


• Educated to degree level in a relevant field.


• Interest in free and open source software

Job description

Key responsibilities

General

• Devise and ensure delivery of Big Brother Watch’s digital strategy & communications calendar, encompassing social media, website, and email, working closely with the Head of Advocacy


• Line manage and support staff within the digital communications team, including performance management and professional development


• Develop packages of digital and physical campaign resources to a high standard


• Monitor trends, sector standards and contribute ideas on new digital initiatives


• Designing templates for our briefings and bespoke report templates

Website

• Drive recruitment of supporters and grow fundraising


• Help maintain and develop the Big Brother Watch website structure, content and SEO


• Create, upload and edit content (including images and video), work with HTML


• Work with colleagues to ensure all content is kept up-to-date.

Email

• Manage the newsletter schedule and mailouts, and other supporter journey engagement


• Ensure best practice in email content, testing, delivery and response rates


• Ensure the highest standard of data protection regarding our databases


• Drive recruitment of subscribers

Social media

• Manage and publish content on Big Brother Watch’s social media platforms and demonstrate growth in outreach


• Lead the development and ideation of new social media content


• Create and edit videos and graphics

Media

• Reposting spokepersons’ appearances in broadcast, online and print media via our digital channels


• General media monitoring of relevant news & press opportunities


• Contributing to press strategies


• Potential requirement to be on 24 hour call for media enquiries – this is on a rota system.