Social Media Content Researcher

Responsibilities

• Research Instagram to identify emerging trends, viral content, successful formats and repeatable concepts.
• Analyse hooks, pacing, editing styles, visuals, audio, captions and audience reactions to understand why content performs.
• Find content ideas relevant to individual creators rather than simply copying general trends.
• Adapt successful concepts to suit a creator’s personality, audience, image and filming setup.
• Develop original variations of researched content and formats.
• Create clear filming briefs including reference links, hooks, captions, shot ideas, audio suggestions and any relevant outfit, location or prop requirements.
• Research a varied range of content including talking videos, lifestyle content, transitions, interactive formats, trending concepts, seasonal content and supporting feed posts.
• Identify the difference between short-lived trends that need to be filmed quickly and evergreen concepts that can be planned in advance.
• Build organised content banks so creators and the production team always have strong ideas ready to film.
• Review published content and social media analytics to understand what performed well and what should be improved, repeated or tested next.

Requirements

• A strong understanding of Instagram culture.
• Someone who naturally spends time noticing new content formats, trends and viral videos.
• A strong eye for what makes social media content engaging.
• The ability to explain why a piece of content works rather than simply identifying that it has lots of views.
• Creativity and the ability to adapt ideas for different creators and audiences.
• Clear written communication and the ability to turn ideas into practical filming instructions.
• Strong organisation and attention to detail.
• Confidence working independently and taking ownership of research.
• Willingness to receive feedback, test ideas and learn from results.
• Confidence using spreadsheets, content-planning tools and basic social media analytics.