Social Media Marketing Lead

We're looking for a high-agency senior to spearhead our social channels during the school year and be considered to join us full-time post-graduation. The role is perfect for a high-agency future founder who spikes in storytelling/social.

Who You Are

1. You understand that content is distribution, and that for our audience that means social first. We capture some of the most powerful real stories in workforce development, and most of them never get told well. You change that. You can take a raw graduation clip or a five-minute student interview and cut three things from it: a hook for TikTok and Reels, a written story for SEO and AEO, and a referral asset alumni actually want to share. You measure content like a growth channel, not a brand exercise: reach, watch time, and how many of those views turn into an enrollment. And you've proven you can do it: you've personally grown an account to millions of views and 10K+ followers, and you can point to the content strategy that got it there.
2. You believe everyone deserves a second chance. This isn't a cause you discovered in the job description. You've thought deeply about poverty, incarceration, and opportunity—and you want your work to matter. You understand that behind every campaign metric is a real person trying to change their life. That weight drives you, not burdens you.
3. You have a genuine point of view on social marketing. You know what works, what's overrated, and what most teams get wrong. You don't default to best practices when your instincts say otherwise. You have opinions on creative, on channels, on messaging—and you're willing to defend them with data. Safe, hedge-everything marketing bores you.
4. You are AI-native, not AI-curious. You've built real workflows that compress hours into minutes. You think like an orchestrator: breaking work into discrete tasks, routing each to the right agent, and stitching outputs together into something production-ready. You maintain your own repo of AI skills and workflows—version-controlled, documented, and shared with teammates—and you help others build their own so the whole organization compounds. If you're still at the stage of typing questions into a chat interface or don't know how to set up an MCP connection, this role isn't for you.
5. You are data-driven and creatively rigorous. You don't guess about what's working—you measure it. You obsess over attribution: you want to know not just how many students enrolled, but which channel, which creative, which touchpoint drove the decision. But you also know that data tells you what happened, not why, and that the best creative insights come from human judgment. You hold both things at once.
6. You are entrepreneurial. You're scrappy, autonomous, and low-maintenance. You don't wait for permission or perfect conditions. You run tests, see what works, kill what doesn't, and ship again. You're comfortable being the primary person accountable for acquisition—and you find that energizing, not scary. You roll up your sleeves and solve problems. No job is too small.
7. You play to win. You stay optimistic when things are slow, keep moving when campaigns underperform, and don't catastrophize when a test fails. You're not rattled by ambiguity. You bring a "yes, and" mindset that finds a path forward instead of reasons to slow down.
8. You work hard. You show up early, stay late, and do what needs to get done—no ego, no excuses. This isn't a 9-to-5. The average person at Emerge works 60+ hours / week because we care about the mission. If that sounds miserable, this isn't for you. If it sounds exciting, you'll fit right in.
9. You are a straight shooter. You don't hide bad news or dress up underperforming metrics. You bring clarity, honesty, and accountability to every interaction—internally and externally.
10. You are a clear writer. You don't need to write the next great novel, but you must communicate simply and precisely. Great copy is a superpower in this role. You value brevity and clarity over length and jargon. You understand that in marketing, every word either earns attention or loses it.

Requirements

• 3+ years of hands-on social medial
• Willing to work in-person in New York City
• Passionate about working with underrepresented communities and tackling challenges related to poverty and inequity
• Experience taking a project from 0 to 1
• Comfort with CapCut, Premiere, Final Cut, TikTok editing tools, Canva, or similar.
• A personal TikTok, Reels, or content portfolio
• Strong analytical ability—you're comfortable building attribution models and turning metrics into decisions
• You've personally grown a social account to at least 10K+ followers, turned it into an acquisition engine, and you can walk us through exactly how you did it.
• You are comfortable filming casually and making real moments feel polished without overproducing them..

Bonus Points

• You've been a founder, first marketing hire, or built something impressive on your own
• Experience filming or editing interview-style content

What You Will Be Doing

• Creative Strategy and Viral Sense. You watch five pieces of couple content and immediately know which one will perform and why. You develop winning formats, identify hook patterns, and brief with specificity
• Full-Stack Video Production. You will use our content database or record TikToks yourself to create and publish your own pieces.
• Creator Program & UGC Pipeline. Own our creator program end-to-end. Develop sourcing strategy, creator personas, and tier structure across markets. Write briefs and scripts that get results. Build the workflows, agreements, payments, feedback cycles, iteration loops, that let us run a high-volume creator operation without things slipping.
• Creator Community. Manage and grow the creator community you create. Keep the roster engaged, informed, and producing. Run challenges, feedback loops, and incentive structures that maintain quality and volume at scale. Identify top performers and build them up. Cull what isn't working.
• Reporting & Optimization You'll track what matters: CPM, CTR, creative performance by format and creator.
• Performance & Targets. Review what drives views, signups, CAC, DAU contribution by channel. You run a clean weekly report to get the best creatives each week. You know why something worked and double down.

Interview Process

About the Interview Process

1. Intro & Work Experience (20 min). We’ll chat briefly about the role and we’ll spend some time reviewing your interests and work experience.
2. Take-Home Challenge. 3-4 hours
3. Take-Home Review (45 min)
4. Cultural Fit (45 min)
5. Work Experience (45 min)
6. Paid Work Trial (1-2 days) — You'll come onsite to work on a real project, with access to internal tools and team collaboration. You'll be paid $500/day. All travel expenses covered.
7. Reference Checks — We'll select 3–4 people you've worked with and request introductions when the time comes. We're looking for honest and raw, not flawless references.