Audience Growth Producer for California markets

The Sacramento Bee and McClatchy’s California news sites are seeking an Audience Growth Producer to grow and diversify readership for our journalism. The successful candidate will engage with readers across our digital platforms, through newsletters, on social media, through live events and in other ways that help grow our base of members (loyal subscribers to our news products). This role is part of McClatchy’s California Audience Development team, composed of an editor, deputy editor and producers who work hand in hand each day with the company’s five California markets.

Audience Growth Producers are data-driven experts in SEO, and newsletter and alert strategies, and are newsroom team partners who are responsible for helping determine the best ways to reach readers with our stories, videos and multimedia packages.

Keen news judgment and understanding of analytics to help drive content strategy, strong communication and writing skills, and the ability to collaborate with your colleagues are musts. Like all journalists at McClatchy, the producer must have demonstrated the desire and skills to build audience loyalty, engagement and growth around compelling public service journalism.

The position is based at The Sacramento Bee in the state’s capital city. Sacramento is a vibrant, culturally diverse city with a welcoming climate and a renowned dining scene. Sacramento is known for its rich history, cultural diversity and dozens of lush farmers markets. (And it’s only 100 miles to the Sierra Nevada mountains, 88 to San Francisco, and 143 to Yosemite.)

This audience producer will have reach across the state, working closely with McClatchy’s California reporters and editors at The Fresno Bee, The Modesto Bee, The Merced Sun-Star and The San Luis Obispo Tribune.

This audience producer also will have opportunities to connect with other audience producers and editors across McClatchy Media, collaborating on innovative strategies to elevate our journalism.

McClatchy Media’s journalists are expected to take advantage of opportunities to harness and leverage artificial intelligence and other automation to enhance and elevate their work and to find efficiencies that free them to focus on high-priority tasks.

Responsibilities:

Implement audience and journalistic best practices to continue serving 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 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 analyzing and interpreting data. Identify audience strategies, and build and implement promotion plans for high-impact journalism projects.
Build and manage social media campaigns that elevate our journalism. The ideal candidate will produce creative designs in line with newsroom branding, write sharp, clean social copy to help readers understand and engage with the local news that affects their daily lives.
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.
Includes some evening and weekend shifts.

What You’ll Bring

Passion for news and love for experimentation.
Excellent communication skills, including leading training and coaching sessions around building audiences.
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.
Proficiency in utilizing AI tools and technologies is highly desired.

Skills and qualifications

The successful candidate should meet many, though not necessarily all, of the following requirements:

College degree or equivalent work experience
Writing, editing, digital and/or social media experience.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is between $26 and $36 per hour based on 37.5 hours per week. Individual base pay may vary within that range depending on job-related knowledge, skills, experience and relevant education.

To apply, please include a cover letter, your resume and any relevant examples of your work.

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 well-being and daily life, our package options include healthcare 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. For more information on McClatchy's benefit plan, please visit McClatchyLivewell.com.

About the McClatchy Media Company

The McClatchy Media Company features a portfolio of vibrant and trusted news, lifestyle, entertainment brands and a robust retail distribution network. Our iconic local news brands such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee, have collectively earned a total of 57 Pulitzer prizes and are complemented by popular lifestyle and entertainment brands such as Us Weekly and Woman’s World. Together, our brands reach more than 100 million unique visitors a month, The McClatchy Retail Network, our distribution and logistics arm, offers delivery to more than 56,000 retail locations weekly.

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