Audience Manager

Mountain State Spotlight, a nonprofit news organization, is looking for a community-oriented, data-driven team member to help focus our journalism and grow our readership.

Join us as audience manager and champion the voices of West Virginians.

Mountain State Spotlight tells stories that uplift West Virginians and highlight the challenges they face. We hold powerful people and institutions to account when they perpetuate or fail to address those challenges. Collaborate with our editorial team to ensure that the stories we tell reflect the experiences of our readers, and work towards making our accountability-driven journalism accessible to those who need it the most. You’ll also work closely with our business team to grow our reader revenue program, building support for West Virginia journalism that makes a difference.

The Role

The audience manager will help Mountain State Spotlight serve West Virginians, grow our readership, and increase our audience revenue by:

• Managing all of our social media feeds, working with reporters, editors and development staff to translate articles into social media content that resonates with our audience.
• Participating in and contributing to editorial meetings, story pitches and story development discussions to ensure readers are always at the center of everything we do.
• Working with editorial staff on headlines and SEO, using analytics and tools like Google Trends and Site Kit for maximum reach.
  Keeping an eye on metrics for all of Mountain State Spotlight’s platforms, providing regular updates and recommendations for the editorial and business teams.
• Spearheading Mountain State Spotlight’s engagement with communities around the state, including social media call-outs, engagement events, and story tip outreach.
• Staying up-to-date on industry developments, including new research and reports on audience growth and engagement, fundraising and artificial intelligence.
• Managing Mountain State Spotlight’s membership program, working with the development staff and editors to grow the number of West Virginians that are financially supporting the organization, and retain our current members.
• Writing our weekly newsletter, and working with editorial staff on new products to reach our audience.
• Leading Mountain State Spotlight staff in trainings on best practices for social media and community engagement.

Our audience manager will be part of Mountain State Spotlight’s editorial team, and report to our Deputy Managing Editor. But they will also work closely with our business team, helping our organization meet goals for both growing our readership and increasing our audience revenue.

You’re a good fit if you:

• Are passionate about journalism, intrigued by difficult questions and like a challenge.
• Are mission-oriented: excited about building a new model for journalism for West Virginians that is focused on serving our state and helping our neighbors make it a better place to live.
• Are driven by results, and bring a sense of urgency to shepherding projects through to completion.
• Are flexible and comfortable working in an environment where the pace can be fast, and multitasking is the norm.
• Are both creative and analytical, and thrive when you’re allowed to use both sets of skills.
• Like to collaborate, and believe that we’re all stronger when we work together.
• Are committed to building a successful audience revenue operation that expands readership and makes journalism available to everyone through a financially sustainable donation funnel.
• Have a demonstrated familiarity with various social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc.), maintain your own accounts and have clear ideas of how a journalism organization can use each tool and what will come next.
• Have thought deeply about and demonstrated success in delivering audiences the news they need in the way they find it most useful, from newsletters to vertical video.
• Are pumped to help make sure as many West Virginians as possible see our journalism, and equally as pumped to help us find important stories by listening to our neighbors.

Do you love the sound of this job, but you don’t quite check all of these boxes? Do you have skills we haven’t thought of yet?  Don’t hesitate to apply and tell us about yourself. We also encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including people of color, veterans, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities.

The Organization

Mountain State Spotlight exists to help West Virginians make our state better through rigorous, independent accountability journalism. We investigate how power is exercised, expose wrongdoing and systemic failures, and provide the sustained reporting communities need to demand change and build a more just future.

Since our founding in 2020, we have grown into a 12-person newsroom producing deeply reported, powerfully told journalism that helps West Virginians better understand the most urgent challenges facing our state.

We are different from other news organizations in West Virginia. We lift the curtain on who holds power, provide sustained coverage of injustices until reforms are made, amplify voices too often excluded from decision-making, and explain complex issues while illuminating solutions.

The need for this work continues to grow. Guided by a new strategic plan, Mountain State Spotlight is building a broader movement of supporters who believe in our mission and want to invest in the future of independent journalism in West Virginia.

Compensation and benefits

• Full-time, salary range is $50,000 – $60,000, commensurate with experience
• Benefits, including 75% company-paid health insurance and 401k
• Twenty-five days of paid time off in addition to holidays and our annual “dark week” between Christmas and New Year’s
• Paid parental leave
• Flexible work schedule. Some weekend and evening hours will be required

Mountain State Spotlight is based in Charleston, West Virginia, a small city where you’ll find friendly neighbors, a low cost of living and numerous opportunities to explore our beautiful state. It’s also full of exciting news to report on, and faces many challenges that demand our vigorous brand of watchdog journalism.  Our newsroom, in an historic building redesigned to Mountain State Spotlight’s specifications, is located in the middle of an exciting neighborhood with lots of opportunities for eating, shopping and socializing. This position is not eligible for remote work.

To apply or to ask questions, email jobs@mountainstatespotlight.org. Please send us a resume and a cover letter that tells us why you are right for Mountain State Spotlight’s team. Applications received by July 1 will receive priority consideration. After that date, applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.