Campus Storytelling & Social Media Specialist

Campus Storytelling & Social Media Specialist

The University of Southern Maine (USM) invites applications for our new Campus Storytelling & Social Media Specialist within the Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications. There has never been a more exciting time to join USM. As a university committed to innovation, student success, and community engagement, USM is experiencing a period of significant momentum and transformation, including the recent completion of the Crewe Center for the Arts, the McGoldrick Center for Career and Student Success, and other major investments across our campuses.

USM also recently launched the groundbreaking Dirigo Partnership with the Portland Hearts of Pine, as their exclusive education partner. The Campus Storytelling & Social Media Specialist drives USM's real-time storytelling efforts across the university's primary social media channels, including Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, You Tube, and partially on Linked In (in partnership with the USM Foundation department). Embedded within the USM community, this role maintains a visible presence across our campuses and beyond, capturing authentic moments that showcase student success, academic excellence, campus life, and community impact.

As one of the university's primary storytellers, the specialist identifies and elevates compelling stories that strengthen USM's brand and reflect our commitment to being Student Focused Every Day.

A skilled multimedia storyteller and social media strategist, the specialist creates engaging content across a variety of formats, including short-form video, photography, written stories, and digital campaigns. Working closely with colleagues across Marketing and Strategic Communications, the role helps shape and execute USM's social media strategy, leveraging audience insights, platform analytics, emerging trends, and best practices to increase engagement, expand reach, and support institutional priorities.

The specialist collaborates with stakeholders throughout the university to ensure timely, relevant, and impactful storytelling that resonates with prospective students, current students, alumni, and community partners.

This position also serves as a mentor and leader for USM's student content creator team, recruiting, training, and developing students while expanding the university's capacity for authentic, peer-driven storytelling. Through relationship-building, collaboration, and hands-on content creation, the specialist fosters a culture of storytelling across the institution, empowering students, faculty, staff, and campus partners to share the experiences that make USM a vibrant and dynamic university community.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong interpersonal and networking skills with the ability to build relationships across a diverse university community and inspire students, faculty, staff, and campus partners to share their stories.
• Experience collaborating with creative, communications, and marketing teams. Able to integrate multimedia content (photo, video, written storytelling) into cohesive social media plans and coordinate effectively with communications storytellers and Senior Multimedia Producer.
• Strong visual storytelling skills and aesthetic judgment, with the ability to produce and guide content that aligns with brand standards while flexing tone appropriately across platforms (e.g., formal/academic, energetic, or playful depending on channel and objective).
• Deep fluency in social media platforms and emerging digital trends, with the ability to tailor content to platform-specific audiences while maintaining consistent institutional voice and brand identity.
• Ability and enthusiasm to recruit, train, and mentor a student team, including assigning work, providing feedback, and managing content quality and workflow.
• Highly creative thinker who actively generates ideas, contributes to brainstorming sessions, and brings innovative approaches to storytelling, audience engagement, and campaign development.
• Excellent organizational and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, deadlines, and content streams in a fast-paced, real-time communications environment.
• Strong written communication skills, including the ability to draft clear, engaging copy and use shared task management and content planning systems to coordinate workflows across teams and student contributors.
• Open, receptive, and growth-oriented mindset—able to incorporate feedback quickly and constructively from multiple stakeholders and apply it to improve content and campaigns.
• Ability to provide constructive and clear feedback, inspiration, and guidance to contributors across the university's broader social media ecosystem, helping to ensure brand alignment and effective storytelling even on decentralized channels.
• Ability to learn-on-the go and be self-taught, take initiative, and work autonomously while working in a strong team environment.
• Self-directed and proactive learner who can…