Social Media Manager

Job Description

The Social Media Manager is responsible for building a strong, trusted and distinctive social presence for Old Mutual across various platforms. This role involves developing and implementing a social media strategy that creates, nurtures and grows communities, strengthens brand relevance and trust, increases engagement, and contributes to positive net sentiment towards Old Mutual.

The Social Media Manager translates Group and business priorities into an integrated social media strategy, content approach, and enterprise social calendar. They ensure that social activity across the organisation is coordinated, strategically aligned, and executed to a consistently high standard. The role also involves owning social media governance, platform management, policy development, and risk management to ensure Old Mutual's social presence operates within appropriate brand, regulatory, legal, and reputational guardrails.

Using social listening, audience insights, content performance, and sentiment data, the Social Media Manager continuously improves Old Mutual's social presence and identifies opportunities to strengthen trust, relevance, and engagement.

Key Result Areas / Outputs

1. Develop and Lead the Group Social Media Strategy

• Develop and maintain the Group-wide social media strategy aligned to Old Mutual's overall brand, marketing, and business strategy.
• Establish clear strategic objectives for social media across brand awareness, brand trust, audience growth, engagement, product and proposition awareness, thought leadership, consideration, reputation, positive net sentiment, and more.
• Define the role of each social platform within the overall Old Mutual ecosystem.
• Establish clear principles for when Old Mutual should build organically, amplify content through paid media, use influencers or creators, leverage employee advocacy, or partner with external communities.
• Ensure social media contributes meaningfully to the broader full-funnel digital marketing strategy.
• Develop strategic recommendations for evolving Old Mutual's social presence as audience behaviours and platforms change.

2. Social Media Channel Strategy

The Social Media Manager is responsible for the strategic role and purpose of Old Mutual's social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, and other emerging platforms.

• Define the role and objectives of each platform.
• Establish audience strategies by platform.
• Define appropriate content formats, themes, and publishing approaches.
• Establish platform-specific content principles.
• Identify opportunities to consolidate, rationalise, or develop social pages where appropriate.
• Ensure Old Mutual maintains a coherent ecosystem across Group-owned social properties.

3. Enterprise Social Media Calendar & Content Planning

The Social Media Manager is the custodian of the enterprise-wide social media calendar.

• Develop and maintain the Group social media editorial calendar.
• Establish annual and quarterly social media themes aligned to brand, business, campaign, financial calendar, corporate events, cultural moments, and relevant external events.
• Coordinate social content requirements from Business Units and Group Functions.
• Ensure stakeholders understand upcoming themes, priorities, and publishing opportunities.
• Identify conflicts, duplication, and gaps across the enterprise social calendar.
• Create greater opportunities for content to be repurposed and amplified across the organisation.
• Establish appropriate briefing deadlines and publishing processes.
• Ensure reactive content is managed within agreed governance frameworks.

4. Social Content Strategy & Development

• Develop the Group social content strategy in collaboration with Brand, Communications, Creative, and Business Unit stakeholders.
• Define content pillars and thematic territories that build brand relevance, trust, financial education, thought leadership, product understanding, customer value, and corporate reputation.
• Partner with creative and social agencies to develop compelling, platform-native content.
• Ensure content is designed for the specific behaviour and expectations of each platform.
• Encourage greater use of video, short-form content, creator-led formats, educational content, executive thought leadership, data-led storytelling, and customer-centric storytelling.
• Establish content testing principles to determine what formats, messages, and creative approaches perform best.

5. Net Sentiment, Brand Trust & Social Reputation

The role plays a critical role in building and protecting Old Mutual's social reputation.

• Develop and maintain a social media net sentiment measurement framework.
• Monitor trends in positive sentiment, neutral sentiment, negative sentiment, brand trust, and key reputation themes.
• Identify the key drivers of positive and negative sentiment.
• Use social insights to inform content and campaign strategies.
• Develop proactive social campaigns designed to improve positive sentiment and strengthen trust.
• Identify reputational risks and escalate relevant issues to Group Communications and appropriate stakeholders.
• Partner with Brand, Communications, and Insights teams to ensure social intelligence contributes to broader reputation management.
• Develop regular recommendations for improving Old Mutual's social brand health.

Important boundary: The role does not own day-to-day community management or customer response. Those responsibilities remain with Group Communications' Community Management team.

6. Social Media Governance & Risk Management

Own and maintain the Group social media governance framework.

• Develop and maintain social media governance standards and operating principles.
• Establish minimum standards for all Group-owned social platforms and pages.
• Define governance requirements covering account ownership, access management, publishing rights, approval processes, content standards, platform usage, risk escalation, crisis scenarios, and third-party access.
• Maintain an accurate inventory of Old Mutual social media accounts and administrators.
• Conduct periodic reviews of account security and access permissions.
• Ensure appropriate controls exist for the creation of new social accounts.
• Establish governance standards for Business Units operating social properties.
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Communications to ensure appropriate controls for regulated financial services content.

7. Social Media & Influencer Marketing Policies

Own the development, implementation, and ongoing review of:

• Social Media Policy, applicable to employees and relevant internal stakeholders, covering responsible social media usage, brand representation, confidentiality, disclosure requirements, appropriate use of company information, personal vs professional social media activity, and escalation of reputational risks.
• Influencer / Creator Marketing Policy, covering influencer selection, due diligence, brand suitability, financial services regulatory requirements, disclosure and transparency, content approval, contractual requirements, monitoring and reporting, and risk escalation.
• Financial Adviser Social Media Guidelines, supporting the development of appropriate guidelines for financial advisers and distribution teams using social media to represent themselves or Old Mutual.

8. Employee Advocacy & Executive Social Enablement

Develop and support appropriate programmes that enable employees and leaders to become credible advocates for Old Mutual.

• Employee advocacy frameworks
• Executive social media enablement
• Leadership content programmes
• Executive thought leadership
• Social media training
• Content toolkits
• Campaign amplification programmes

Ensure advocacy programmes are governed appropriately and remain authentic rather than becoming purely promotional.

9. Influencer & Creator Strategy

Develop and manage the strategic framework for influencer and creator partnerships.

• Identify opportunities for creator-led storytelling.
• Define appropriate influencer categories and audience segments.
• Develop selection and evaluation criteria.
• Ensure influencer partnerships align with brand values, audience relevance, trust, and financial services regulatory requirements.
• Measure influencer effectiveness beyond reach, including engagement quality, sentiment, brand impact, audience relevance, and consideration where measurable.

10. Social Media Campaign Strategy

• Develop social media strategies for major Group campaigns.
• Translate campaign objectives into social-first strategies.
• Define audience, social role, content architecture, channel mix, paid amplification requirements, influencer/creator opportunities, and measurement framework.
• Work closely with the Digital Marketing, Performance Marketing, Brand, and Campaign Management teams to ensure integration across paid, owned, and earned activity.
• Ensure social is incorporated early into campaign planning rather than being treated as a distribution channel at the end of the process.

11. Social Media Insights & Analytics

Develop a robust social measurement framework covering audience, content, brand, business, and use these insights to provide actionable recommendations rather than simply reporting social media statistics.

12. Agency Management

Manage social media agency partners to ensure they deliver against agreed strategic and operational requirements.

• Develop clear agency scopes of work.
• Establish performance expectations and KPIs.
• Manage agency deliverables and quality.
• Provide strategic direction to agencies.
• Ensure agencies operate within Old Mutual's governance framework.
• Conduct regular performance reviews.
• Identify opportunities to improve agency efficiency and value.
• Ensure Old Mutual retains ownership of strategic knowledge, data, and platform assets.

13. Stakeholder Management

Build strong relationships with Group Marketing, Business Unit Marketing teams, Brand, Communications, Creative, Business Units, Group Functions, and other relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment, collaboration, and effective social media execution.