Associate Director, Social Content & Engagement

Bader Rutter•Milwaukee, WI

About The Position

At Bader Rutter, the Social Content & Engagement team creates social content designed to earn attention, interaction and recall, helping client brands remain top of mind. The Associate Director will lead social strategy and content creation across a portfolio of primarily B2B brands in petcare, manufacturing, and food and beverage. This is a player-coach role combining strategic leadership, hands-on content development, creative oversight, trend spotting, and team building. The role is based in Milwaukee or Chicago and requires travel expected to exceed 10%, depending on client assignments and other factors. The stated annual salary range is $100,000–$120,000; the actual offer may vary based on experience and other job- and market-related factors.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree and 10 or more years of related experience, including at least 7 years leading social strategy and teams with accountability for results, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Mastery of social content creation and creative oversight, with strong editorial judgment.
A track record of leading and developing social practitioners with clear ownership of outcomes.
Hands-on experience growing engagement across LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
Proficiency with social content creation and social listening tools such as Canva, Adobe Photoshop Express, Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and Brandwatch.
Experience managing creator relationships, talent-driven content, and the integration of organic and paid social.
Fluency with short-form and long-form video and experience working with production partners.
Experience building measurement frameworks and presenting performance, learnings, and recommendations to senior stakeholders.
Strong relationship-building, budget management, and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
Strong curiosity about platform trends, creator strategies, and cultural conversations, with a drive to test new ideas and formats.

Nice To Haves

Reddit and YouTube expertise.
Experience in agriculture, petcare, manufacturing, foodservice, food and beverage, or other technical or regulated categories.

Responsibilities

Develop platform-specific social strategies tied to client business goals, identifying cultural moments, creator trends, and whitespace opportunities.
Monitor audience analytics and platform signals to refine strategies and anticipate changes in social media consumption.
Partner with Paid Social and leaders across strategy, creative, PR, and media to develop integrated client solutions.
Lead social campaigns from initial brief through post-campaign analysis while pushing creative boundaries and raising the editorial bar.
Champion video, Stories, and Shorts as core social formats, working with production partners and creators.
Lead creator and influencer strategy, including managing amplification vendors and developing in-house programs from talent identification and contracts through execution.
Guide community management and social listening to build brand affinity, surface audience insights, and identify emerging opportunities.
Define measurement frameworks with the Analytics team and translate performance data into insights and recommendations for senior client stakeholders.
Grow clients’ social programs with share-worthy content that drives engagement and exceeds performance benchmarks.
Lead, coach, and develop social content specialists and community managers while managing team resourcing and workloads.
Oversee social media budgets, including creator spend.
Lead agency education and training on platform trends, technologies, and best practices.