Digital Operational Communications Officer (m/f/x) – MSF Belgium – Brussels

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international humanitarian aid organisation that provides assistance in more than 60 countries to populations in distress, to victims of natural or human-made disasters and to victims of armed conflicts, without discrimination and irrespective of origin, religion, creed or political affiliation.

Digital Operational Communications Officer (m/f/x) – MSF Belgium – Brussels

CONTEXT

Digital is impacting the media, communications and humanitarian landscape in various ways, and it is gaining an important role within operational communications at MSF.

At a pivotal moment for the Communication department of MSF Brussels Operational Centre (OCB), the Digital Operational Communications Officer (DOC officer) aims to bring consistency and help consolidate the digital support to MSF communications in the field by enhancing their digital communications. Working closely with the Digital Strategist, this position will help identify opportunities for the growth of social media audiences and the strengthening of communities in the countries where OCB is present.

The DOC officer will lead on social listening to help MSF understand where the relevant conversations are happening in the countries where we work by identifying trends, challenges and opportunities. S/he will have room to experiment and adapt our content to upcoming social media trends and optimise the use of digital tools.

This position will champion analytical thinking by delivering standard and custom social media reports. These reports will be accountable for improving and standardising the collection of meaningful data and then communicating the findings to allow the teams to make decisions based on the reports. They will advise on adapting our content to social media channels. And they will implement social media advertising tactics to help us achieve our communications objectives and report on their performance.

The Digital Operational Communications Officer works within the MSF OCB Combo Unit and reports to the Digital Strategist. The Combo Unit (Communication for Brussels Operations) is a multidisciplinary team that provides strategic advice, support, guidance and audio-visual tools to benefit operations managed by OCB and MSF’s mission of speaking out and bearing witness.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Social listening and monitoring

• Implement social listening and online monitoring using tools like Talkwalker, Crowdtangle, Emplifi, TweetDeck and others.
• Provide ad hoc social media monitoring to support OCB’s operational communications during incidents and crises.
• Preserve institutional memory of critical incidents management by documenting the cases, sharing lessons learned and best practices with the Combo team, field communications colleagues and the wider MSF digital community.

Content for digital platforms

• Find creative ways to adapt relevant content to social media channels in the country of operations.
• Identify successful and/or trending content (within MSF and external networks) and share it with the Combo team and field communications colleagues. This includes trends by big tech platforms, international awareness days and others.
• Develop a process to improve social media content production in the field communications teams by rolling out Canva.

Paid promotion

• Implement social media advertising campaigns to increase visibility and acceptance in countries where MSF has operations.
• Execute and oversee a strategic testing process to optimise and improve the engagement and reach of the content we produce for social media channels in the field.
• Identify appropriate content for boosting, target audiences and A/B testing and ensure adequate community management for ads.

Insights and analysis

• Lead on data analysis and trends of digital channels for OCB’s operational communications (social, PPC, website) and provide tactical recommendations for improving the impact of all digital activity to achieve operational communications objectives.
• Support the field communications teams on the ongoing measurement against KPIs to continuously improve our content and MSF’s digital presence in the field.
• Collaborate with the Combo team to implement social analysis for key communications initiatives and present insights to inform content decisions and advise communications tactics.
• Report on MSF digital performance producing regular reports of OCBs country portfolio.
• Promote the strategic use of data analysis and analytics across OCB operational comms and field communications, including active internal communications of key analysis and/or dashboards.

Other tasks

• Act as a back-up for the Digital Strategist, provide admin support and participate in an out-of-hours emergency rota on occasion.
• Ensure field teams keep clean and accessible records for project documentation and online account details and implement security best practices.
• Support the identification of technical issues and facilitates the solutions.
• Keep ahead of digital trends and innovations and spot relevant opportunities for MSF.

Please note that this list is indicative of the key responsibilities of this role but is by no means exhaustive. MSF is an emergency organisation and a ‘Can do attitude and flexibility to take on other related tasks is essential.

REQUIREMENTS

Education & Experience

• Studies in strategic communication, digital marketing, public relationships, social sciences, journalism desirable
• Strong track records of utilising social media platforms, developing digital communications or marketing and community management
• Experience and knowledge of working with digital tools for marketing, reporting and listening (Google Analytics, Meta Business Manager, Google Data studio, Talkwalker, Crowdtangle, Emplifi, Canva, etc)
• Understanding of social listening tactics and practical experience on implementing them
• Experience creating and implementing social paid promotion campaigns/plans, mainly for Facebook, ideally across different industries or markets
• Substantial experience in analysing complex data, developing reporting systems, and making tangible recommendations to improve digital communications
• Excellent knowledge of Office 365 and Mac environment
• Knowledge and basic experience of the entire landscape of digital communications (social media, search engine optimisation, email marketing, user experience, web development, design thinking) desirable
• Proven online content production experience (TikTok, Youtube, Stories) is an asset
• Knowledge of Adobe Creative Cloud is an asset
• Awareness and/or interest in misinformation and disinformation and experience in how to tackle them
• Experience in proposing, running, and evaluating A/B or multivariate tests desirable
• Experience in supporting colleagues with communications activities, either through coaching/training or assisting with particular projects

Languages

• Excellent command of written and spoken English
• Fluency in either French, Arabic or Spanish is a strong asset

Competencies

• Team player
• Creativity, curiosity, a sense of initiative
• Deep understanding of digital communication
• Quality and results orientation
• Flexibility and capacity to work under strict deadlines
• A good judgement of ethical aspects of communication, copyright and legal aspects
• Cross cultural awareness
• Sense of humour

CONDITIONS

• Expected starting date: As soon as possible
• Location: Brussels (Belgium)
• Possible field visits
• Contract type: Open-ended contract – Full time
• Belgian contract; Salary according to MSF-OCB HQ grid
• Meal Vouchers – Hospital Insurance (DKV) – Pension Plan – 100% reimbursement for public transportation costs – In-house canteen at fair prices
• Adhere to the MSF principles and to our managerial values: Respect, Transparency, Integrity, Accountability, Trust and Empowerment
• Adhere to the MSF Behavioral Commitments