Social Media Content Manager

The Franklin Inst • Philadelphia, PA

3d • $70,000 - $75,000 • Onsite

About The Position

The Franklin Institute (TFI) is seeking a highly creative, platform-native Social Media Content Manager to lead the development, production, writing, and publishing of compelling social content. This role is designed for a creator-strategist who understands how to turn institutional priorities, exhibits, science education, visitor experiences, pop culture moments, and behind-the-scenes access into entertaining, useful, and high-performing social content. The position is centered on original content creation, short-form video storytelling, social copywriting, platform fluency, creative testing, and performance-driven iteration. The goal is to redirect the trajectory of TFI’s social media presence by making each channel more engaging, more distinctive, and more valuable to both current and prospective audiences. The Social Media Content Manager will be responsible for strengthening TFI’s position as a leading cultural and science institution on social media, building a recognizable social voice, translating TFI’s brand into social-first content, increasing engagement, growing follower count, and using performance data to improve content quality and strategy.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Journalism, Digital Media, or a related field preferred; equivalent professional experience and demonstrated success in social content creation and audience growth will be considered.
• 5-8 years of professional experience creating social media content for a brand, publisher, cultural institution, entertainment property, agency, nonprofit, media company, or creator-led environment.
• Demonstrated portfolio of high-performing social content, including short-form video, social campaigns, social copy, and platform-specific creative.
• Proven ability to create entertaining, engaging, made-for-social content from concept through execution.
• Strong short-form video production skills, including shooting, editing, scripting, pacing, and visual storytelling.
• Excellent social copywriting skills, including hooks, captions, calls to action, campaign copy, and platform-specific voice.
• Strong knowledge of platform-native content formats, audience behavior, and social media best practices.
• Ability to interpret performance data and translate insights into stronger creative decisions.
• Strong editorial judgment, attention to detail, and ability to communicate complex topics clearly.
• Ability to work independently, move quickly, manage multiple priorities, and meet deadlines.
• Comfort working cross-functionally with internal teams and external partners.
• Willingness to work occasional evenings and weekends for events, launches, and timely coverage.

Nice To Haves

• Experience creating social content for museums, science centers, cultural attractions, entertainment brands, tourism destinations, sports, media, education, or family-focused organizations.
• Experience growing engagement and followers for an established brand account.
• Strong on-camera, directing, interviewing, or field-producing instincts.
• Experience developing recurring social series or audience-building content formats.
• Experience using social listening, analytics, and scheduling tools. Meta Business Suite and Emplifi experience a plus.
• Experience with paid/organic integration and campaign optimization.
• Familiarity with accessibility best practices, including captions, alt text, and inclusive content standards.
• Comfort using creative tools such as Adobe Premiere, CapCut, Canva, Photoshop, Lightroom, After Effects, Sprout Social, native platform analytics, and AI-assisted tools.

Responsibilities

• Strengthen TFI’s position as a leading cultural and science institution on social media.
• Build a recognizable social voice that is smart, curious, accessible, and compelling.
• Translate TFI’s brand, exhibits, programs, people, and science expertise into social-first content.
• Increase engagement from current followers by creating content that is useful, entertaining, timely, and emotionally resonant.
• Grow follower count through stronger platform-native storytelling, creative testing, and audience development.
• Use performance data to improve content quality, posting decisions, creative formats, and audience response.
• Concept, script, shoot, edit, write, and publish original social-first content across priority platforms.
• Produce short-form video, Reels, TikToks, YouTube Shorts, Stories, social graphics, carousel posts, captions, hooks, and platform-specific copy.
• Identify compelling visual and narrative moments across the museum, exhibits, programs, visitor experiences, science demonstrations, collections, staff expertise, and events.
• Create content that balances institutional priorities with audience interest, entertainment value, and social relevance.
• Develop recurring content formats and series that build familiarity, repeat engagement, and audience loyalty.
• Apply platform-specific best practices for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other priority channels.
• Stay current on platform changes, algorithm updates, content trends, creator tools, and audience behavior.
• Understand the creative and distribution differences between entertainment-driven platforms, search-and-discovery platforms, professional platforms, and community platforms.
• Write strong, concise, engaging social copy with clear hooks, audience value, and platform-appropriate tone.
• Develop captions, headlines, social scripts, post copy, replies, calls to action, and campaign language.
• Translate complex science, exhibit, and institutional messaging into accessible, compelling copy.
• Maintain a voice that is smart, confident, curious, entertaining, accurate, and aligned with TF brand.
• Build social content plans for major exhibits, events, membership campaigns, ticketing priorities, science stories, partnerships, and institutional moments.
• Turn campaign goals into compelling content concepts that can drive awareness, engagement, traffic, ticket sales, attendance, membership value, or brand affinity.
• Partner with programming, education, experience, development, membership, and external agencies to identify content opportunities.
• Bring strong cinematic judgment to short-form social content, including framing, pacing, sequencing, music selection, text overlays, transitions, lighting, and story structure.
• Capture high-quality mobile-first video and photo content in real time.
• Edit polished short-form video using appropriate tools and platform-native features.
• Maintain quality standards while producing content efficiently and consistently.
• Monitor performance across channels and use results to improve creative decisions.
• Track engagement rate, reach, follower growth, saves, shares, comments, watch time, completion rate, click-through behavior, and other relevant metrics.
• Identify patterns in what content performs, what underperforms, and provide clear recommendations based on data, not just reporting summaries.
• Conduct creative testing across formats, hooks, lengths, posting times, captions, thumbnails, and calls to action.
• Adjust content strategy based on audience response, platform behavior, campaign performance, and institutional goals.
• Own and manage the social content calendar for organic channels.
• Ensure posts are accurate, approved when needed, brand-aligned, and published on schedule.
• Coordinate with internal teams to gather assets, verify information, and schedule coverage.
• Balance planned campaign content with timely, reactive, and opportunistic content and maintain flexibility to respond to timely cultural, scientific, local, and institutional moments.
• Monitor audience responses and identify engagement opportunities that strengthen the brand.
• Surface audience insights, recurring questions, sentiment patterns, and content opportunities.
• Oversee Coordinator or similar to respond or escalate comments, questions, and issues according to established guidelines.
• Partner with communications leadership on sensitive or high-risk social issues.
• Identify and work with a select list of content creators (aka influencers) to support the museum’s mission and revenue driving initiatives (ticket sales, membership, public campaigns).
• Manage outreach, contract terms, monitor participation, and invite them to events and programming to generate social content.
• Capture and publish real-time content during exhibit openings, press events, member events, public programs, evening events, and select weekend moments.
• Identify what should be covered live, what should be captured for later editing, and what does not merit social coverage.
• Work with photographers, videographers, event teams, and external partners to gather strong social assets.

Benefits

• health, dental, and vision
• 401K
• life insurance and disability coverage
• generous Paid Time Off
• paid holidays
• numerous wellness program benefits

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level