Director of Brand Strategy and Social Media

About the Role

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a unified brand strategy for the athletics department, ensuring consistency across all sports programs, marketing channels, and fan experiences.
• Define brand positioning and messaging that reflects the department's core values and competitive spirit.
• Collaborate with internal teams (communications, marketing, creative, sponsorships) to ensure brand alignment across digital, print, and in-venue assets.
• Create and implement a comprehensive social media strategy to engage fans, alumni, recruits, donors, and the broader university community.
• Oversee the athletics department's main social channels and provide strategic guidance to individual team accounts.
• Drive content planning, storytelling, and engagement initiatives across platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
• Monitor trends in college athletics and emerging platforms to keep the department's social media presence innovative and competitive.
• Develop strategies that leverage social media and branding to support student-athlete recruitment and retention.
• Partner with coaches and recruiting coordinators to create compliant, compelling digital content for prospective student-athletes.
• Lead multi-channel marketing campaigns to promote athletic events, ticket sales, and fundraising initiatives.
• Collaborate with university communications and PR teams on integrated campaigns to highlight athletic achievements and major announcements.
• Track and analyze social media engagement, audience growth, and campaign effectiveness, reporting on KPIs such as fan engagement, impressions, reach, follower growth, and recruitment metrics.
• Refine strategies based on data insights and audience behavior.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in business, marketing, sport management/athletic administration, or a comparable field.
• At least five years of experience in college athletics, sports marketing, or a related field.
• Experience in multi-media production platforms such as websites, animation, or graphic design is desired.
• Strong understanding of brand development, digital engagement, and social media strategy.
• Ability to collaborate with internal teams and external partners to ensure brand consistency.
• Analytical skills to track and interpret social media and campaign performance metrics.

Nice to Have

• Graduate degree in a related field.
• Experience with web development, animation, or graphic design.
• Knowledge of NCAA and university brand guidelines.
• Experience in sponsorship implementation and organizational branding outreach.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field.
• Minimum of five years of experience in college athletics or sports marketing.

Benefits & Perks

• Health, dental, vision, life, and long-term disability insurance.
• Retirement plans and defined contribution options.
• Sick leave and other leave options.
• Tuition waiver benefits for employees and dependents/spouses of UNC employees.
• Dependent undergraduate tuition grants of up to 50% for employees working at 0.5 FTE or above.