Press Officer

Location - Remote Working and every Tuesday in the Office at Chichester

Hourly Rate - £13.71

Full Time - Interim Position

Reference - 7860920

Background

As a Press Officer in the Communications & Engagement Team you will deliver a first-class range of communications and engagement activity, focusing on key strategic traditional and social media management and relations activities, while supporting campaigns. Working on a number of creative projects at one time, you will ensure that all communications activity is evaluated to show its impact by creating, managing and monitoring plans and providing quantifiable data through a variety of methods to track the success of the activity. You will help to identify and support the council’s promotional campaigns, behavioural change programmes, and projects in order to maximise opportunities. You will have a real understanding of council services in order to spot opportunities and make relationships with key staff within the organisation. You will also have an understanding of the news agenda both locally and nationally
to make sure the county council is exploiting every opportunity and reacting to
the stories of the day. You will be required to participate in an out-of-hours on-call rota, for which an additional allowance is provided.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for providing effective and efficient day to day support to the Communications and Engagement Leads for development and analysis of new and ongoing media and communications activity.
• Compiling, analysing and producing market intelligence on the most effective communication channels.
• Handling routine media enquiries effectively and developing productive working relationships with media contacts.
• Interpreting complex information to produce quality communications material with minimal guidance.
• Evaluating the impact of media and communications activity, including the impact on audience, resource requirements, risks and campaign costs.
• Devising and implementing mechanisms to evaluate all outputs to be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of all communications.
• Writing campaign material e.g. press releases, social media posts, written briefs and proposals to achieve successful outcomes.
• Providing support, training and / or mentoring to colleagues as required in order to meet team objectives.

Key Skills

• Ability to develop creative ideas and editorial across all forms of communication, and editing input for a range of platforms.
• Ability to write effectively for a range of audiences and communication channels including for the web and social media.
• Developed communication and interpersonal skills in order to interact effectively with a range of clients/stakeholders and create and maintain effective working relationships.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to anticipate problems and resolve issues independently, and making sound pragmatic decisions.
• Ability to manage and prioritise workloads effectively, in response to changing demands, and meet deadlines.
• Excellent literacy and numeracy skills in order to understand and interpret research data and customer feedback and present analysis in the most appropriate way.

Qualifications and Experience

• Relevant degree, or equivalent qualification e.g. NCTJ, or equivalent experience.
• Relevant theoretical and practical knowledge of processes, procedures and policies associated with working within a demanding communications service.
• Knowledge of communication methods, including social media, to effectively contribute to changing campaign objectives.
• Understanding of the media landscape and management of media sensitive issues.
• Understanding of the political landscape and politically sensitive issues.
• Experience of working on a variety of communications activities, particularly in a public sector environment. Also of working in a rapidly changing environment.
• Experience of/confidence in dealing with a range of people and services and planning on more than one campaign at a time.
• Experience of mentoring or coordinating staff and activities to meet team objectives.
• Sound and accurate IT knowledge e.g. Microsoft Office, in order to accurately analyse information/data.

If you are interested in this role, please call 020 3641 9193 for further details or email your CV to apply@instajobsuk.com