Group Director, Social Practice Lead
Description
Title: Group Director, Social Practice Lead
As Group Director, Social Practice Lead, you will be responsible to ensure the success and growth of our clients by applying industry leading paid social leadership, strategies, processes, training, and automation. This role is the guardian of paid social excellence across GroupM Canada and will ensure it is reflected in everything we do. You will collaborate with various stakeholders, from senior leaders to activation teams, to represent and oversee the delivery of social craft standards.
This role reports to the SVP, Platform Operations and will lead the agency embedded GroupM Nexus Canada social practitioners across Mindshare, EssenceMediacom and Wavemaker. Our structure has our teams living in the agencies, with matrix reporting lines into nexus practice leads and client leads. This means you must be able to work well in a matrix organization to assert authority in a diplomatic fashion and to a very high degree of success. This role will be client facing across our top clients to support social strategy and activation.
Key Objectives
- People: certification and development support
- Process & operations: continuous improvement and deployment of craft excellence
- Client: performance & satisfaction
- Commercial: creation and commercialisation of GroupM social capabilities
Process & Operations
This role will collaborate with internal and external partners to ensure an optimized GroupM social framework is in place across all agency teams and iterate process where required to support evolving platform landscape and client needs.
Responsibilities:
- Ensuring a continuous improvement of social excellence scoring through leadership and strategic intervention
- Collaborate with stakeholders to understand needs and anticipate areas for improvement
- Develop and oversee social excellence standards across the group, work with teams to coach them, instill best practices and create meaningful case studies, client success/growth and testimonials which can be utilized during Quarterly Business Reviews
- Inform development of automation solutions (e.g., social scripts, automation tools, process improvements, etc.) through the group
- Accountable for maintenance and evolution of Social Excellence guides
- Ensuring that industry developments are quickly and concisely communicated across the group
- Lead GroupM platform access across social platforms and adhere to GroupM policy around compliant user management
- Lead partner and publisher relations, including: representing GroupM requirements to existing partners through both formal reviews and day-to-day interaction, collaborate with key partners to develop win-win JBPs, reviewing potential new social products and partners, and communicating a clear POV
- Point of contact for all social Global / Regional and GroupM Partners, both internal and external, matters / communications relating to the practice.
Client & Commercial
This role will support growth of billings, net sales, and retention by building relationships with our most senior clients, and through partnership with client leadership in the development of annual growth plans. As a practice lead, you will be called on as the expert in connecting our performance products and craft during Quarterly Business Reviews for our largest clients.
Responsibilities:
- Identify significant social client opportunities in collaboration with the team, based on research, analysis and a strategic view of the direction of the market
- Maintain a strong view of client satisfaction and proactively develop strategies for improvement in collaboration with agency stakeholders and our top clients
- Work in tandem with Nexus department leads to resolve escalations as they arise
- Support the agency in new business where required
Training
In partnership with Nexus leadership, you will develop and deploy training and certification programs – ensuring that GroupM Nexus employees continue to be the highest skilled practitioners in the world
Responsibilities:
- Develop training curriculum for teams and key clients
- Develop and lead all social team certification programs
- Provide mentorship & coach staff members in social practice across GroupM
- Create a system for regular team recognition across network to highlight excellent work and demonstrate how key tactics can be implemented
- Partner with social venders to ensure we are leveraging their platforms effectively and collaborate on trainings and innovation opportunities.
Key Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Demonstrated track record of agency experience, paid social planning / execution and client relationship development
- Experience in leading and building highly effective teams who delight clients with great service and media results
- Excellent organizational, time management and multi-tasking skills
- Advanced ability to plan, implement and manage strategic and operational initiatives
- Keen attention to details, robust critical thinking and proactive problem-solving
Professional Experience:
- Expert experience (8+ years) in social and digital media buying roles, with latest experience being of leadership and supervision
- Able to work independently to create & deploy strategies that deliver the company vision
- Well-versed in all major social partners, including Meta, X, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snap, TikTok, and Reddit
- Experienced communicator, able to deliver well-designed presentations to a range of stakeholders, and shows strong upward management skills.
About GroupM
GroupM is the world’s leading media investment company responsible for more than $63B in annual media investment through agencies Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence and m/SIX, as well as the outcomes-driven programmatic audience company, Xaxis. GroupM’s portfolio includes Data & Technology, Investment, and Services, all united in vision to shape the next era of media where advertising works better for people. By leveraging all the benefits of scale, the company innovates, differentiates and generates sustained value for our clients wherever they do business.
GroupM and all its affiliates embrace and celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are a worldwide media agency network that represents global clients. The more inclusive we are, the more great work we can create together.
We’re an equal opportunity employer and values diversity in its workforce. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation at any time during the recruitment process, please let us know. While we appreciate all applications received, only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.