Senior Journalist, Social Media Team, BBC News Russian

BBC Group and Public Services; London; Hybrid; GBP 39,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a dynamic team at a leading media organization as a Senior Journalist focused on social media. This role involves crafting innovative digital content and engaging with audiences through various platforms. You will leverage your expertise in social media trends and data analysis to enhance our online presence and drive audience engagement. Collaborate with talented teams to deliver compelling narratives that resonate with diverse audiences. This is a fantastic opportunity to make a significant impact in a fast-paced environment while enjoying excellent career progression and development opportunities.

Benefits

Flexible Working Hours

25 Days Annual Leave

Pension Scheme

Discounted Health Care

Training and Development Opportunities

Qualifications

• Full command of spoken and written Russian and English.
• Proven experience with social media formats and trends.
• Strong analytical skills to interpret data insights.

Responsibilities

• Create and curate engaging social media formats for diverse platforms.
• Analyze audience behavior and prepare performance reports.
• Collaborate with production and editorial teams to maximize reach.

Skills

Social Media Management

Data Analysis

Content Editing

Visual Storytelling

Russian Language Proficiency

English Language Proficiency

Education

Degree in Journalism or Related Field

Tools

YouTube Studio

Google Analytics

Adobe Photoshop

Figma

Canva

Job description

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Senior Journalist, Social Media Team, BBC News Russian

Journalism

Permanent - Full Time

London, GB, W1A 1AA

BBC PUBLIC SERVICE B'CAST

Job Closing Date: 21/05/2025

THE ROLE

BBC News Russian is one of the largest of the BBC’s language services, providing non-stop multimedia content on BBC platforms and social media across the world. Our output adheres to BBC’s values of accuracy and impartiality, free from commercial, political and religious affiliations or pressures.

With teams based in London and Riga, and led by the Assistant Editor, the BBC News Russian social media team plays a vital role in producing innovative and original digital content, and reaching and engaging with Russian Service audiences, especially at a time when so many of our platforms are blocked in Russia.

We are hiring a Russian fluent Senior Journalist to join our BBC Russia Social Media Team in London. Your primary focus will be on developing and executing a strategic approach to our social media presence. You will work in close collaboration with the BBC Russian newsroom — including the visual journalism and video teams — to craft social media-first, visually engaging solutions that amplify our content. Responsibilities include creating and curating compelling formats, managing its promotion, analysing audience behaviour, and driving engagement to grow our reach and impact.

You’re the ideal candidate if you’re a sharp-eyed, thoughtful editor who’s comfortable working across different visual storytelling formats, enjoy solving technical challenges, can easily switch between setting a clear brief and jumping in to create a format yourself, and you know how to make sense of data to inform your decisions.

Main Responsibilities

• Format Creation: Stay on top of industry and platform trends to pitch and deliver social media-first formats — from short videos to engaging threads — and repurpose existing content in fresh, platform-relevant ways that resonate with our target audiences and reflect innovative storytelling approaches.
• Content Editing: Review and refine content produced by social media producers (scripts, translations, thumbnails, captions, hashtags, etc), ensuring alignment with brand voice, quality standards, and platform requirements.
• Data Analysis: Use tools like YouTube Studio, TGStat and other platform-native insights dashboards to track key performance indicators such as engagement rate, audience retention, and conversion metrics; prepare performance reports, offering actionable recommendations for content improvement based on data trends.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with production, marketing, and editorial BBC’ teams to synchronize efforts and maximize cross-platform reach, share expertise and insights via workshops, training sessions, or internal guidebooks, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.

This position requires strategic vision, editorial leadership, and collaboration to strengthen our social media presence and drive audience engagement — along with a curiosity for digging into tools, workflows, and technical solutions that help bring ideas to life more efficiently.

Are you the right candidate?

We’re looking for someone who:

• Is a Confident Editor: You have a sharp eye for detail and a strong sense of storytelling, capable of refining complex ideas and sensitive topics to meet the highest editorial standards.
• Has Proven Experience working with Social Media: You’re deeply familiar with formats, trends, and best practices across platforms. You know the difference between a Telegram post and a tweet on X, how to create viral Reels and TikToks, and how to adapt a data-driven story into a compelling video for YouTube.
• Is Analytical and Strategic: You can interpret data insights to refine strategies and make informed decisions that drive engagement and growth.
• Thrives in Collaboration: You enjoy working with diverse teams, sharing knowledge, and contributing to cross-departmental initiatives. You are confident in communicating with partners, potential guests, and contributors, with a talent for identifying the right people and independently setting clear and effective tasks.
• You also need: Full command of spoken and written Russian, as first or equivalent language, excellent knowledge of English, including complete comprehension both written and spoken, fluent usage of visual editing software (Adobe Photoshop/Figma, FCP, Canva, Flourish/Datawrapper), analytical tools (Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics, TGStat, etc), good knowledge of news and current affairs for Russia, FSU and internationally.
• Has a Technical Awareness: A basic understanding of web development principles is a plus. You don’t need to code from scratch, but knowing how things work under the hood will help you better shape and communicate your ideas across formats.
• And: Be ready to work well and calmly in a pressurised live 24-hour newsroom environment; and to handle a rapidly changing news agenda. It’s a hybrid role that will require you to work nights, weekends and to come into BBC Broadcasting Houseon a regular basis.

Package Description

Job Reference: 20299
Band: D
Salary: £39,800 - £49,800 per annum base salary depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience + London Weighting (£5,319). The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Contract type: Permanent role
Location: London

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

• Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
• Benefits - We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym. You can find out more about working at the BBC by selecting this link to ourcandidate pack .

If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the [e-mail]. For any general queries, please contact: [e-mail].

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here .

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please clickhere .

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory

DISCLAIMER

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

BBC Group and Public Services, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, United Kingdom, W1A 1AA. BBC Studios Distribution Limited, company no: 01420028, registered address: 1 Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London, United Kingdom W12 7FA.