Blog Lead & Operations Manager

The Global Demand Center (GDC) within the Cloud Marketing group is leading the marketing transformation of Microsoft's largest and fastest growing commercial cloud businesses. We are looking for a blog and ops expert to help drive forward the digital experiences that support how customers, across industries, buy cloud services from Microsoft. The Cloud Blog & Social team within the GDC is looking for a blog/news editorial expert with a strong desire to bring our brand to life online. The ideal candidate loves editorial content, is strategic and collaborative, understands blogging best practices, has a deep understanding of SEO and analytics, what drives performance, is a strong project manager, and understands production and operations cycles and optimizations for streamlining and building in efficiencies.
Our team provides value for our customers through deep connections and meaningful engagements across blog and social. We manage one of the largest social ecosystems in the world, including 23 commercial blog channels, and publish 100+ posts every month. The Blog Lead will be responsible for the blog editorial calendar, publishing strategy, intake processes, and reporting & insights for the Business Applications, Industry, and Modern Work blogs. The leads will partner together to drive operational excellence across the entire blog ecosystem, build partnerships across other Microsoft blogs by sharing best practices to strengthen the digital-connection points and manage a small, remote vendor team. This role will work closely with cross-functional teams across Creative, Content, Product Marketing, PR, Events, Social, and stakeholders across the wider organization.ResponsibilitiesBlog Channel Strategy

• Implement the blog channel strategy - provide guidance and recommendations to stakeholders on how to increase impact through topics and stories that resonate with readers and optimize the blog post by enhancing the structure, post titles, effective use of media, SEO, CTAs, etc.
• Advocate for the customer by advising on optimal user experience across digital channels and other marketing efforts to ensure the blog readership experience brings value to our customers and other audiences.
• Implement the blog amplification strategy (on social) in partnership with the Social Leads
• Provide stakeholders with data-driven insights to support editorial point of views, driving business value and readership satisfaction.
• Leverage data and insights to analyze blog performance and present key learnings to leadership and during business reviews and for monthly MBRs
• Contribute to the development of projections and other KPIs before releases based on historical data and insights.

Blog Editorial & Publishing Operations

• Collaborate with Product Marketing and other GDC stakeholders to develop a monthly editorial calendar for thought leadership and product update blog posts.
• Set expectations on SLAs and deadlines to ensure effective and efficient operations.
• Support the blog planning, strategy, execution, and analysis of content published during Microsoft's Flagship events.
• Stay up to date on industry themes: User experience, information architecture, SEO, blogging platforms, best practices, blog syndication, and competitors' blogging strategy and tactics.
• Participate in the annual survey of our audiences' blog consumption habits.
• Maintain processes and governance and help maintain best practices documentation pertaining to strategies, tactics, and operations for blog and social channels.

Co-lead a team of 9+ remote vendors who serve as blog editorial managers and coordinators.QualificationsRequired/Minimum Qualifications
• 2+ years public relations, marketing, community management, social media management, or communications experience
OR equivalent experience.
Additional or Preferred Qualifications
• 7+ years public relations, marketing, community management, social media management, communications, or related experience
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business, Journalism, Communications, or related field AND 5+ years public relations, marketing, community management, social media management, communications, or related experience
• OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years product-relevant industry experience (e.g., gaming, entertainment).
• Experience working for a Fortune 50 organization
• GM+ level presentation skills.
• Excellent communications, storytelling and influencing skills
• Agency experience is a plus.
• Strong blogging acumen - knowledge of best practices for blogging.
• Experience managing complex editorial calendars - in collaboration with product marketing and other key stakeholders to ensure maximum reach and impact.
• Strong customer-centric mindset, with demonstrated ability to put the audience first.
• Excellent creative storytelling - formulates effective reports, PowerPoint presentations, or whitepapers that tell a resonating and clear story to internal clients and fluidly presents recommendations to key collaborators.
• SEO experience - understands industry trends in SEO, and how to utilize and deploy keyword research to optimize content for organic search in blogs.
• Data-first mindset - familiar with Adobe Analytics and able to utilize data to build and communicate publishing recommendations, formulate best practices, and create opportunities to better engage with our audiences and drive measurable impact for Microsoft Cloud.
• Excellent collaborator - finds a common ground with teams who have different priorities and pressures to ensure disclosure and announcement blogging plans are effectively and efficiently executed.
• Experience being a part of distributed virtual teams. Positive, proactive and embody an entrepreneurial mindset
• Ability to operate and prioritize in a fast-paced and highly collaborative environment both independently and as a member of a team
• Excellent attention to detail, as well as the ability to see that high-level view
• Expertise with WordPress
• Proven project management experience with ability to drive clarity on varying priorities, tight timelines, organizational alignment, measurement, and accountability
• Experience with managing a vendor team - employs proven leadership techniques to drive clarity and operational rigor among a team of 9+ remote vendors who serve as blog editorial managers and blog posting coordinators.
Community Management IC3 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $80,900 - $162,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $105,300 - $176,900 per year.
Microsoft has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets (see below). The range above reflects the potential base pay across the U.S. for this role (except as noted below); the applicable base pay range will depend on what ultimately is determined to be the candidate's primary work location. Individual base pay depends on various factors, in addition to primary work location, such as complexity and responsibility of role, job duties/requirements, and relevant experience and skills. Base pay ranges are reviewed and typically updated each year. Offers are made within the base pay range applicable at the time.
At Microsoft certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, including merit increases, annual bonus and stock. These awards are allocated based on individual performance. In addition, certain roles also have the opportunity to earn sales incentives based on revenue or utilization, depending on the terms of the plan and the employee's role. Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of employment with Microsoft and the country work location. U.S.-based employees have access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellbeing benefits, paid vacation time, paid sick and mental health time, and several paid holidays, among others.
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We are committed to the principle of pay equity - paying employees equitably for substantially similar work. To learn more about pay equity and our other commitments to increase representation and strengthen our culture of inclusion, check out our annual Diversity & Inclusion Report.
(https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/annual-report )
Understanding roles at Microsoft
The top of this page displays the role for which the base pay ranges apply - Community Management IC3. The way we define roles includes two things: discipline (the type of work) and career stage (scope and complexity). The career stage has two parts - the first identifies whether the role is a manager (M), an individual contributor (IC), an admin-technician-retail (ATR) job, or an intern. The second part identifies the relative seniority of the role - a higher number (or later letter alphabetically in the case of ATR) indicates greater scope and complexity.
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Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.