Audience Growth Producer

Date Posted	April 22, 2024
Industry	Newspapers
Specialty	Other
Required Education	Bachelor's Degree
Job Status	Full-time

Description:

The Kansas City Star, winner of nine Pulitzer Prizes, is seeking a creative, high-energy journalist to join our team as an audience producer.  

This person will be responsible for helping The Star grow and diversify the digital audiences that the organization is reaching with its local journalism. In this role, you will be responsible for helping to deepen reader and subscriber engagement on our website using smart SEO strategy, social media, push alerts and newsletters.

This position is based in the Kansas City metro area and reports to The Star’s audience development editor. Our four-member audience team often collaborates with colleagues in other McClatchy newsrooms, including the Wichita Eagle and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

As a member of the audience team, you will help determine the best ways to promote our stories, videos and accountability journalism. Keen news judgment, strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate with colleagues – both local and remote – are musts.

The successful candidate will bring a commitment to meeting the information needs of local readers, a willingness to represent The Star in the community and online, an audience-focused approach to writing and a curiosity about how to measure the impact of our journalism using data and analytics. 

We ask that you bring a positive attitude, an excitement to connect with The Star’s subscribers, a willingness to listen to community feedback, and an enthusiasm for experimentation. 

This position may include some nights and weekends, especially during major news events like Kansas City Chiefs games and elections. 

You’ll join a team that is fun, creative and always looking for new ways to connect and inform our diverse audience across platforms. The newsroom you’ll join is deeply committed to listening to, engaging with and meeting the needs of our neighbors across the Kansas City metro area. 

Kansas City is a vibrant, large city with a high quality of life – replete with iconic professional sports teams and a world-class arts scene – and a low cost of living. It’s a fantastic place to put down roots, and this job offers the chance to contribute to its future. 

We believe that our team is stronger when we include individuals with a variety of perspectives and experiences, and we encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

What you'll bring

In this role you will: 

• Implement digital audience and journalistic best practices to serve our local and loyal audiences, particularly our subscribers.
• Coach newsrooms on SEO best practices, ensuring local and breaking news stories are surfaced for readers through search.
• Identify audience strategies for building and implementing promotion plans for high-impact journalism projects.
• Build and manage content-focused social media campaigns on Instagram, TikTok and other platforms that elevate our journalism.
• The ideal candidate will write sharp, concise, clean social copy to help readers understand and engage with the local news that affects their daily lives. The candidate should be prepared to coach newsrooms on the best social media practices.
• Identify key new audiences, and launch engagement efforts to connect with communities. 
• Collaborate with the analytics team to craft reports for the newsroom and drive strategy. The producer should have familiarity with data.
• Write engaging copy and curate newsletters that serve subscribers.
• Coach and collaborate with journalists on headlines.
• Experiment with new tools and platforms.
• Other digital audience growth duties as needed.
• May include some evening and weekend shifts.

A successful candidate will bring many of the following:

• Passion for news and love for experimentation.
• Excellent communication skills, including leading training and coaching sessions around building audiences.
• A familiarity with communities in the Kansas City area.
• Familiarity with how to measure success using audience metrics and analytics.
• Experience managing social media accounts, and working knowledge of SEO concepts and Google Trends to grow our readership, especially among potential subscribers.
• Understanding of social media best practices.
• Understanding of newsletter best practices.
• Ability to use analytics tools such as Parse.ly to make real-time decisions for elevating our journalism and developing related digital strategies.
• An independent spirit that can make decisions quickly and can handle several tasks at once.
• Excellent news judgment and a demonstrated ability to “see the story” that is going to matter to readers.
• Proven ability to work with cross-functional teams. 

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• College degree or equivalent work experience.
• At least 1-3 years of audience engagement, strategy or reporting experience.
   

What we’ll bring:
As a journalist at McClatchy, you will join a supportive, flexible, collaborative team. McClatchy strives to be an employer of choice, and our benefits package is made with this goal in mind. With a focus on health, well-being, wealth and daily life, our package options include health care coverage for employees and their families, financial protection from expected and unexpected expenses, multiple no-cost wellness resources and even coverage for four-legged friends. 

Our overall benefits package also includes a 401(k) with employer match, competitive paid time off and corporate holidays, and a variety of mental health benefits. With an excellent support team and with focus on your well-being as a top corporate strategy, McClatchy provides benefits to support you and your family in achieving your health and wellness goals. For more information on McClatchy's benefit plan, please visit McClatchyLivewell.com. 

To apply, include a persuasive cover letter, your resume and four to six examples of your best work.

About McClatchy:

Our impact is growing every day. 30 growing markets. Over 65 million monthly readers. 57 Pulitzer Prizes. A strong portfolio of dynamic partnerships and smart investments. Our award-winning journalism, digital reach, and commitment to innovative growth have never been stronger. 

As a member of the McClatchy family, you are part of a flexible, empowering, and exciting culture dedicated to creating a work/life balance and consistent opportunities for growth—a place where you have a voice and the ability to impact our future. It’s an exciting time to be here. Our company is experiencing the most transformative period in its history. We’re growing rapidly in the digital space and delivering award-winning journalism in innovative ways.