Social Media Manager at Diageo

What you’ll be doing: 

The Social Media Manager leads the strategic direction for social media across Diageo Europe, with a strong emphasis on our largest market, Great Britain. While social is the primary focus, this role requires broad crosschannel planning expertise and a deep understanding of how social integrates within the wider media ecosystem. 

As the region’s social expert and strategic partner, you will define our approach across paid, owned, and earned channels; oversee influencer and collaboration programmes; and guide the continued consolidation of our social ecosystem. You will act as a critical connector between GB and other local markets, global teams, and media partners to drive consistency, quality, and innovation. 

You will champion excellence in execution, measurement, and continuous improvement — developing capability, elevating standards, and embedding best practice across the Media & Digital Centre of Excellence. Reporting into the Media & Digital Transformation Lead and with a dotted line into the Media and Digital Market Lead, this role will work closely with the wider scaled reach team, you will ensure social plays its full role within integrated media plans and that Diageo remains a leader in how brands show up across all digital channels.  

The ideal candidate brings deep social expertise, complemented by strong crosschannel connections planning experience and a clear understanding of how each channel contributes to overall brand and business outcomes. 

Your main responsibilities will be: 

Strategic and Thought Leadership 

• Serve as the regional thought leader shaping Diageo Europe’s social media strategy across paid, owned, and earned channels, with a strong focus on driving excellence in the GB market. 
• Define the role of social within the broader crosschannel media mix, clearly articulating how platforms connect to priority audiences, influence the full consumer funnel, and support retailer and commercial objectives. 
• Develop and implement bestpractice guidelines for EU paid social, ensuring consistency, effectiveness, and integration across markets and channels. 
• Foster strong partnerships with key media owners and platforms to keep Diageo at the forefront of innovation in audience targeting, content formats, creator integrations, and channel capabilities. 
• Collaborate closely with culture leads, creators, and market media teams to elevate content quality and ensure bestinclass approaches across paid, owned, and earned environments. 
• Work in partnership with the Senior Creator Lead (GB) to align creator strategy with paid media planning, ensuring creator content plays its full role across channels. 
• Establish and embed a unified measurement framework for social media that links media efficiency, brand effectiveness, and crosschannel performance into a clear, cohesive view. 

Paid Social Amplification 

• Translate MMM insights and performance learnings into clear social planning principles, ensuring all paid social investment is optimised for efficiency, effectiveness, and incremental growth. 
• Partner with the wider Media & Digital managers to ensure upcoming influencer and creator activity is strategically amplified through paid media, maximising reach, relevance, and return. 
• Provide expert guidance to markets — particularly GB — on how to scale creator and cultural moments across channels, ensuring paid amplification is integrated into broader media plans. 
• Oversee the connection between influencer-led content and paid social activation, ensuring strong creativetomedia fit and effective crosschannel deployment. 
• Champion a testandlearn agenda within our transformation framework, for paid social amplification, identifying opportunities to pilot new formats, audiences, and optimisation models, in partnership with the platforms and transformation team. 

Owned Social Consolidation 

• Oversee the roadmap of consolidating local handles to global handles across all META accounts in Europe 
• Become a trusted partner of the global social ops team, translating the strategic vision into action 
• Ensure alignment with Diageo’s strategic goals by providing updates on progress towards reducing social handles by 75%. 

Platform Management 

• Become an expert in two key platforms; Sprinklr & Traackr 
• Ensure 100% compliance from agencies on EU markets usage of Sprinklr for social media activation 
• Have oversight on the social listening trends that are presented to local markets and liaise on the strategic approach to actioning these trends into campaign and content briefs 
• Oversee and approve all requests for admin/ad account access 

Stakeholder Collaboration 

• Build strong relationships with local Culture & Entertainment and Marketing teams, ensuring they are fully aligned with the social ecosystem consolidation vision and equipped to activate it effectively in their markets. 
• Act as the primary point of contact for Europe on paid social, coordinating priorities, sharing regional needs, and driving consistency in execution and governance. 
• Partner closely with market Media & Digital Managers to embed bestinclass social practices, with a specific focus on the effective amplification of influencer and creator activity through paid channels. 
• Facilitate crossmarket collaboration by sharing learnings, identifying common challenges, and championing joinedup planning across paid, owned, and earned environments. 
• Ensure ongoing alignment with agency partners and internal teams to maintain high standards, streamline workflows, and drive integration across the social and broader media ecosystem. 

Leadership & Mentoring  

• Provide guidance and mentorship to the Social Media Execution Specialist, fostering professional growth and development. 
• Conduct regular one-on-one sessions to offer feedback, support skill enhancement, and ensure alignment with Diageo's strategic objectives. 

What you’ll have: 

• At least 8 years experience working with Social media platforms, understand paid best practices and experience with platforms.  
• Strong Social strategy experience and connecting through to implementation 
• Preference for cross channel experience and understanding how social plays a role in the wider omnichannel mix 
• Experience connecting and working across multiple business functions & levels of experience  
• Able to easily translate data into actionable insight, and communicate across varying degrees of media expertise  
• Experience and capabilities of using social media tools and platforms 
• Strong analytical abilities to interpret performance metrics and derive actionable insights. 
• Excellent communication skills to effectively liaise with marketing stakeholders across Europe. 
• Experience in leading initiatives that align with strategic goals. 
• Understanding of cultural trends and the ability to engage authentically within diverse communities. 
• Flexibility to adapt strategies based on evolving market dynamics and consumer behaviors. 
• Experience in people management 
• Fluency in English