DIGITAL STRATEGIST FOR OPERATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS Remote

Location: Any European location with an MSF office other than Geneva, Switzerland (Operational Centre, Partner Section, or Branch office) *

Contract: Permanent at 100%

Deadline for applications: 7th January 2024

Starting date: As Soon As Possible

*****By default, the successful candidate will be offered a contract in the European MSF office of their country of residence at the time of application.

Context & Mission

Médecins Sans Frontières is an independent, international medical and humanitarian organization that provides care to people in need, people affected by natural or man-made disasters, and victims of armed conflict, without discrimination and without regard to race, religion, creed or political affiliation (MSF Charter).

In MSF project countries and regional offices, there has been an organic growth usage of digital channels – particularly social media – across field operations and an increasing demand of using digital platforms to better reach our audiences and beneficiaries. Therefore, there is a need to sustain and manage this growth strategically in support to MSF’s social mission, as well as to integrate more robust digital engagement components into operational comms strategies to both our operational and field communication colleagues.

In this context, the OCG Digital Advisor for Operational Comms works on achieving the following objectives:

• Be a first point of reference and contact in case of crisis management for digital communications for OCG.
• Reinforce target regional and local influencers and our operational needs, MSF ́s digital communication outreach and engagement and by finding ways to use keywords in strategies employed by MSF.
• Ensure the impact of our digital strategies in support our operations.
• Strengthen our ability to monitor and manage crisis resulting increasingly from digital sources.
• Strengthen digital culture and knowledge across field teams and the operational comms team.
• Provide support to Field Comms Teams and Strategic Communications Advisors, especially in the area of social media security, social media content production and community management, social media advertising, developing social media strategies and visual guidelines, conducting digital assessments, reporting, and digital monitoring and analysis.

The Digital strategist (DS) is the digital referent of OCG operational communications team and the Operational Center Geneva. The DS is one member of the eleven positions to strategically support MSF Operational Center Geneva (OCG) from a communications perspective. His/her responsibility is to oversee digital communications in OCG countries of operation, to achieve strategic presence in digital space, and to ensure sustainability, coherence and consistence in how MSF communicates in the online space across all the countries and during the change of field staff.

• The Digital strategist is accountable to the Operational Communications Coordinator/ Operational Center Geneva (OCG) and has functional relations with the MSF OCG Emergency Unit, OCG cells at headquarter and field levels.
• They are entitled to make regular assignments in Geneva and MSF fields of operation.
• The Digital strategist position is based anywhere in Europe where MSF has an operational center or section. E,g., Brussels, Spain, France, Germany… however they will work closely with the Field Comms Teams, in cooperation with the Comms Advisors in Geneva, the intern in Geneva, the MSF Suisse Digital Unit
• The Digital strategist is an active member of the intersectional Digital Working Group
• They contribute to the digital culture and knowledge within field teams and develops internal/external networks around digital communication for MSF operations.

Responsibilities

Strategic input

• Develop and advise on digital communication strategies tailored to the field contexts of OCG’s missions in collaboration with the SCAs, FCMs and FCOs, and oversight on their implementation by field coms staff.
• Organize, facilitate and conduct digital context analyses as needed, including assessing and guiding on whether to open /or not country specific channels.
• Gather, analyze and utilize relevant data to develop ways to improve the overall performance of digital channels.
• Provide guidance on digital tools, formats, channels, and relevant strategies including audience targeting and audience-building as well as sharing best practices.
• Follow digital innovations and trends in order to identify opportunities to integrate them in current communications initiatives, using new platforms or channels, and connecting with the existing channels (such as MSF International TikTok) when relevant.
• Help Identify opinions leaders on social media in countries of operations.

Content management and dissemination

• Support with digital dissemination strategies (including digital marketing) to reach target audiences in project countries
• Advise operations with innovative formats and tools
• Provide training for the field comms staff: website design and structure, SEO, paid advertising, digital marketing.
• Ensure all OCG countries follow best practices under OCG Guidelines (with a special attention to OCG Business Manager).

Monitoring & Crisis Management

• Be a first point of reference and contact in case of crisis management and emergencies for digital communications for OCG.
• Ensure online monitoring during crises and emergencies with the support of MSF network and tools
• Provide advice and guidelines and potentially implement on crisis management resulting from digital sources, including management of fake news, rumours, troll’s attacks and smear campaigns.
• Help strengthen Crisis communications OCG protocols.
• Develop, maintain and improve the monitoring tools for OCG countries operations and HQ, with contribution from the field comms staff.
• Wherever possible, implement the “all-in-one” monitoring – curated review of the most relevant online mentions sent regularly by the field comms teams to the relevant MSF stakeholders.

Training

• Coach and train field coms staff to ensure the development and management of digital accounts (e.g. editorial line, content creation, dissemination, community engagement)
• Provide information sessions/trainings on social media, digital tools and practices to peers in the unit and ops colleagues both in HQ and the field
• Make sure that guidelines on social media and digital tools and practices are disseminated and known across field teams

Networking

• Participate to weekly meetings of the Operational Communications Unit and Digital Unit, with which he/she shares access to technical tools
• Participate actively to the intersectional Digital Working Group for operational comms (DWG) and other relevant digital and comms platforms and discussions
• Be a focal point and work in collaboration with digital peers in the communication hubs as well as the MSF relationship managers of major SM companies (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Be a focal point for Digital Health Promotion projects .

Your Profile

Education & Experience

• Solid and proven experience (middle to senior) in digital communications and social media strategies and community management
• Experience of remote collaboration and distance coaching
• Previous experience in MSF or the international humanitarian sector an asset

Skills/ Technical competencies

• Solid knowledge of web content management
• Deep understanding of SEO
• Good knowledges of Google Analytics
• Basic HTML/CSS knowledges
• Photo and video production skills, and/or basic of Adobe Creative Cloud, an asset
• Flexibility and ability to work under tight deadlines.
• Creativity and sense of initiative
• A good judgement of ethical aspects of communication, copyright and legal aspects
• Good knowledges of Office 365 and Mac environment

Languages

• Very good command of English
• At least another of the following languages: French / Arabic

Special requirement

• Availability to travel with at short notice to complex security contexts

Terms of Employment

• Full-time position 100% (40h/week)
• Open-ended contract
• Working place: Any European location with an MSF office other than Geneva, Switzerland (By default, the successful candidate will be offered a contract in the European MSF office of their country of residence at the time of application)
• Ideal start date: As Soon As Possible