Digital Communications Manager

Responsibilities

• Develops integrated digital communication plans with the Senior Director of Marketing & Communications, and participates in school- and university-wide cross-functional initiatives to promote the Shepherd School as a consistently top-ranked school of music.
• Builds, tests, and deploys Shepherd School patron-facing emails related to marketing, communications, and ticketing.
• Updates the Shepherd School’s website content, including faculty bios, department pages, news items, and more. Ensures all content meets WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility guidelines, optimizes page structures and metadata for both traditional SEO and generative AI discovery, and safeguards visual and tonal brand alignment across all digital touchpoints.
• Serves as the primary staff member responsible for establishing, developing, monitoring, and maintaining the Shepherd School of Music’s social media presence. Generates copy and graphics for posts, and executes deployment. Monitors trends to inform content generation. Provides customer service to followers across all platforms.
• Curates dynamic content, including photography and video, for the Shepherd School’s website and social media channels. Designs and develops graphics for digital communications. Writes short news articles to showcase on the Shepherd School website.
• Collaborates with students, faculty, and staff to tell the stories of the Shepherd School, creating processes to gather and share information in a timely manner.
• Compiles data, analyzes, and reports on website, social media, and email efforts to measure their effectiveness.
• Performs other duties as assigned.
• Promotes Shepherd School events by creating and updating listings on the Rice University events calendar and other Houston online calendars.
• Coordinates and executes cross-promotional marketing and communications efforts with other Rice schools/departments and community partners.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree
• In lieu of the education requirement, additional related experience above and beyond what is required may be substituted on an equivalent year-for-year basis.
• 2+ years of professional experience on a marketing or communications team working with social media content, email communications, design, and web.
• In lieu of the experience requirement, additional related education, above and beyond what is required, may be substituted on an equivalent year-for-year basis.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Organized, creative, and able to take direction and work to meet expected deadlines and schedules.
• Proven knowledge of social media/digital platforms, including current and future trends.
• Proven experience updating website information using a content management system (CMS).
• Proven experience in designing and deploying public-facing email communications.
• Demonstrated team player.

Preferred

• 3 – 4 years of professional experience on a marketing or communications team working with social media content, email communications, design, and web.
• Bachelor's degree or higher in English, journalism, marketing, or related communication fields.
• Experience in a performing arts environment is preferred.
• Experience with digital media creation, analytics, and data tracking is a plus.