Communications Officer full-time

Career Opportunity: Communications Officer

Do you love creating engaging, great looking digital content? Do you want to use your skills to make the world a better place? Join the fight to secure excellent healthcare, financial security and freedom from discrimination for Canadians as we age.

CARP is looking fora front-line Communications Officer to support our advocacy campaigns and grow our membership. The Communications Officer will report to the VP Advocacy and work closely with the Director of Communications.

About the Role

Communication is critical to CARP’s success, and this position will play a foundational role. Working closely with advocacy, marketing and IT staff the Communications Officer is the front line person for all of CARP’s digital communications.

Key responsibilities include:

• Managing CARP’s website to ensure content is clear, compelling, easily accessible, visually appealing and optimized for search engine performance;
• Working with the COO and digital department to revise the website as required to maximize conversions and user engagement;
• Writing and deploying our weekly and monthly online newsletters. Newsletters should have clear and compelling content that results in high open rates and be structured to drive traffic to the website;
• Posting chapter events and other key chapter content on the website;
• Managing CARP’s presence on Facebook, Twitter and other social channels to build CARP’s profile, engage our larger community and drive traffic to the website;
• Collaborating with digital marketing to develop digital resources (shareable graphics, website tools) to build profile for and interest in our advocacy campaigns;
• Creating website pages for campaigns in print (Zoomer Magazine) and radio to obtain emails and convert visitors to members or donors;

• Drafting media releases;

• Ensuring website and social media channels are fresh and attractive by creating new digital content or curating information relevant to our members (e.g., “in the news” posts, personal interest stories, sharing pertinent articles and videos from around the web, commenting on user submissions, etc.);

• Other related (writing or project management) duties as required.

Skills, Education and Other Requirements

The ideal candidate willbe self-motivated and able to work in a small office environment. This position requires:

• Bachelor’s degreeor diploma in relevant discipline such as journalism or communications;

• Experience managing content-rich websites and social channels using a CMS platform. Experience with WordPress would be a strong asset;

• Superb writing skills, including the ability to write quickly in plain English with flawless grammar;

• Ability to write compelling personal interest stories;

• Strong editing and proofreading skills;

• Ability to quickly create digital content that is visually appealing and engages readers;

• Eagerness to learn new skills and processes as website technology and social platforms evolve;

• Strong organizational and multi-tasking skills;

• Ability to work in an environment with tight deadlines and competing priorities;

• Experience with standard office equipment, software, and popular social platforms including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Facebook, Twitter;

• Basic experience using image manipulation software such as Photoshop;

Minimum of 12 months experience in written and digital communications.