Audience Editor, Chron

Audience Editor

Chron | Houston, TX

Full-time | Digital Audience Social Video

Chron is chasing Texas-sized audience growth. We need an editor who knows how to make sharp journalism travel farther—across social platforms, search, newsletters and video—while building deeper, more direct relationships with Texans who come to Chron for news, culture and everyday curiosity.

Chron’s next Audience Editor will drive great content to new heights both on-and off-platform, grow our most loyal audience and find ways to reach new ones. The ideal candidate has read Chron, understands the brand—sharp, fresh and unmistakably Texan—and brings a strategic-first mindset with the hands-on fluency to execute. This role is the connective tissue between editorial ambition and audience reach.

• 3+ years of relevant experience in audience, social or video publishing strategy, with people-management experience preferred
• A degree in journalism, communications, marketing or a related field, or equivalent professional experience
• Strong understanding of Houston and Texas, and good instinct for stories that could travel statewide
• SEO experience, including the ability to use search trends, Google Discover/Google News signals and audience data to identify coverage opportunities
• Strong social and video fluency, especially across Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, You Tube, Reddit and Nextdoor
• Ability to shoot and edit vertical video; experience with Cap Cut, Canva or similar tools
• Strong writing, copy editing and communication skills, including the ability to write social copy in Chron’s voice with accuracy, clarity and Texas wit
• Excellent news judgment, including comfort with breaking news and knowing when to escape decisions to newsroom leadership
• AI fluency and curiosity—able to use AI to find audience insights, simplify tasks and find efficiencies, while understanding that AI is no substitute for human judgment and verification
• Experience with social media scheduling tools, analytics platforms and performance reporting
• Flexibility and adaptability in a fast-paced, always-on news environment

• Writing social copy, designing visual builds and posting stories to social platforms
• Developing and posting social video to Chron’s site and social channels
• Sharing pacing data with the newsroom and surfacing trending terms that are a good fit for Chron to pursue
• Newsletter content mix and when to issue site alerts

• Long-terms social, search and audience strategy decisions
• Sensitive breaking news alert messaging

• Maintaining and growing healthy audience referral channels (search, social, newsletters, Google News, etc.)
• Increasing followers and engagement (shares, comments, saves) across social platforms
• Driving traffic from social, search and newsletters back to Chron content on site
• Supporting subscriber and newsletter growth
• Overall increase of unique in-DMA audiences
• Overall increase of repeat visitors from target growth markets within Texas

• Identifying areas of opportunity—content development recommendations that match audience wants, or trending search terms ripe for Chron to own
• Continuously testing new ideas and being open to pivoting in a changing media landscape to keep audience channels strong
• Understanding audience habits deeply enough to craft a strategy that retains loyal readers while developing new ones across Texas

Chron is an essential digital-first local news source serving more than 6 million unique readers a month in Houston and the surrounding region, including Galveston and the Gulf Coast. Once the digital home for the Houston Chronicle, Chron became its own distinctive site and newsroom…