Brand Strategist - YouTube & Social Content

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced YouTube Strategist to lead the day-to-day strategy, management, publishing, and optimization of a major consumer brand's YouTube channel during a high-profile, approximately 10-week engagement.

Reporting to the Director of Organic Social, this individual will serve as the dedicated YouTube subject matter expert, partnering with the broader Organic Social team to maximize the performance of high-visibility programming, live-event content, and supporting short- and long-form video.

This is not a content creator role. The ideal candidate is a hands-on YouTube platform expert and experienced social strategist who can move seamlessly between strategy and execution-developing platform recommendations while personally managing publishing, optimization, reporting, channel organization, and cross-functional coordination.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the day-to-day strategy and management of the brand's YouTube channel throughout the engagement.
• Develop and execute a YouTube-specific platform strategy designed to maximize audience growth, engagement, viewership, and overall channel performance.
• Recommend strategies for both YouTube Shorts and long-form/VOD content.
• Identify opportunities to repurpose, clip, package, and amplify existing content specifically for YouTube.
• Recommend incremental YouTube-first programming and optimization opportunities based on platform best practices and audience behavior.
• Partner with the broader Organic Social team to ensure YouTube complements the overall social and marketing strategy.
• Help determine how to maximize platform performance when available content is limited.

• Own end-to-end YouTube publishing workflows across Shorts and long-form/VOD content.
• Manage content scheduling and publishing for episodic programming, live-event content, and supporting pre- and post-event content.
• Optimize titles, descriptions, thumbnails, metadata, tagging, chapters, end screens, cards, links, and other discoverability opportunities.
• Manage YouTube-specific features including Premieres, playlists, Community posts, content hubs, chapters, pinned comments, and channel organization.
• Coordinate content calendars, approvals, assets, and publishing requirements.
• Ensure content is published accurately and on schedule.
• Identify opportunities to extend the lifespan of existing content through resurfacing, repackaging, playlists, Shorts, and other YouTube-native tactics.

• Conduct an audit and clean-up of the existing YouTube channel.
• Improve channel organization, discoverability, consistency, and overall user experience.
• Maintain and optimize channel architecture, including homepage organization, playlists, featured content, content groupings, and navigation.
• Apply current YouTube best practices across both the consumer-facing channel and backend channel management.
• Continuously identify opportunities to improve channel health and performance.

• Serve as a key day-to-day point of contact with external YouTube/platform partners.
• Coordinate platform recommendations, content calendars, approvals, opportunities, technical requirements, and event-related support.
• Partner closely with Social, Creative, Production, Marketing, PR, and other cross-functional teams.
• Manage multiple timelines and dependencies across a high volume of content.
• Proactively identify and communicate potential risks, gaps, or opportunities.
• Clearly communicate publishing plans, platform requirements, recommendations, and performance to internal and external stakeholders.
• Operate independently in meetings and confidently represent YouTube strategy and platform best practices.

• Monitor performance across Shorts, long-form/VOD, episodic programming, live-event content, and supporting assets.
• Provide regular reporting and actionable insights to support real-time optimization.
• Evaluate YouTube KPIs including views, watch time, audience retention, engagement, subscriber growth, traffic sources, and other relevant channel metrics.
• Translate performance data into clear recommendations for both immediate campaign needs and longer-term YouTube strategy.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of social media experience preferred, with significant hands-on experience managing YouTube for a brand, publisher, entertainment property, agency client, or similarly scaled organization.
• Minimum of approximately 3-5 years of relevant experience; candidates with 5+ years are strongly preferred.
• Deep, hands-on knowledge of YouTube, including Shorts, long-form/VOD, YouTube Studio, analytics, Premieres, Community, playlists, channel architecture, publishing, and optimization.
• Demonstrated experience building AND executing YouTube strategies, rather than simply publishing content to the platform.
• Strong understanding of YouTube discoverability, audience retention, packaging, channel growth, and platform-native best practices.
• Experience supporting high-profile, high-volume, episodic, entertainment, or live-event content is highly desirable.
• Strong organic social media background and understanding of how YouTube fits within a broader social strategy.
• Excellent project management and organizational skills.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.
• Ability to independently collaborate with internal teams and external platform partners.
• Comfortable working both strategically and hands-on.
• Able to work quickly and exercise sound judgment in a fast-moving environment with tight deadlines.
• Highly detail-oriented and comfortable managing multiple simultaneous workstreams.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a true YouTube specialist, not simply a general social media professional who has occasionally worked with the platform.

They should have hands-on experience developing YouTube strategy, managing channels, publishing and optimizing content, analyzing performance, and using platform functionality to drive results. They should understand the nuances of what makes content successful specifically on YouTube and be able to recommend how existing content can be packaged and leveraged for maximum impact.

This person should be a self-starter, collaborative, energetic, highly organized, and well-spoken, with the confidence to independently work alongside senior internal stakeholders and external partners.

Industry-specific experience is not required. Experience within fashion, retail, beauty, CPG, entertainment, media, or other consumer-facing brands is a plus, but deep YouTube expertise is the priority.

Assignment Details

• Assignment Type: Project-based contract
• Duration: Approximately 10 weeks
• Schedule: Full-time, approximately 40 hours per week
• Work Arrangement: Hybrid - approximately 1-2 days per week onsite
• Start: ASAP
• Travel: Potential limited travel associated with the major live event
• Hours: Candidates must have some flexibility for evening/weekend work tied to scheduled programming and the live-event period
• Extension: Unlikely
• Conversion: Not anticipated

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About Aquent Talent

Aquent Talent connects the best talent in marketing, creative, and design with the world's biggest brands.

Our eligible talent get access to amazing benefits like subsidized health, vision, and dental plans, paid sick leave, and retirement plans with a match. We also offer free online training through Aquent Gymnasium. More information on our awesome benefits!

Aquent is an equal-opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics. We're about creating an inclusive environment-one where different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are valued, and everyone can contribute, grow their careers, and thrive.