Sports Digital Producer/Content Creator

Sports Digital Producer/Content Creator
The Des Moines Register seeks an experienced digital producer who will focus on growing audience, especially for Iowa sports coverage, from local high school football fans to national followers of Iowa State University and University of Iowa athletics.

This role requires expert skills in SEO refinement, headline writing, social media post creation, text editing, and photo and video shooting and editing. It also requires an understanding of audience metrics and social media platforms; quick, tight, lively writing; and a competitive mindset to place Register content at the top of page view charts each day.

The producer will collaborate with sports editors, reporters, photographers, and videographers to produce sports social videos for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts; write trending sports news as needed (2‑4 bylines per day); work with podcasts and newsletters; and create engagement through polls and crowd‑sourced stories.

The producer will develop and execute a strategy to grow the sports audience and revenue on YouTube, monitor audience comments, engage with the audience, and facilitate conversations between readers and journalists.

The role also requires flexibility to support SEO and audience plans for breaking news, features, business, investigations, and other general coverage. The Des Moines‑based employee reports to the Register’s sports editor, with a close working relationship with our newsroom audience team.

The position demands an insatiable curiosity about digital audiences and a drive to get the most audience possible for each piece of content, alongside experience with social media management tools, design tools like Canva, and analytics tools such as CrowdTangle, Google Analytics, Parse.ly.

Work schedule: Tuesday through Saturday during much of the academic year to cover Friday night high school sports and Saturday college football and basketball; typical work week Monday through Friday April through August, with shift times varying during fall/winter months depending on football and basketball start times.

Responsibilities

Use metrics and analytics to determine how to best reach and grow the digital audience.

Increase the digital audience and engagement and grow subscriptions.

Be courageous about experimentation.

Be a team player who likes to collaborate with coworkers.

Apply innovative, creative thinking to support the company's goals.

Requirements

Bachelor's or master's in communications, journalism or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

3 years of experience in professional journalism writing, editing, digital production or social media roles.

Understanding of metrics, social media and SEO.

Solid news judgment.

Strong writing skills, with the ability to write quickly and clearly.

Self‑motivation and self‑direction.

Top‑notch planning, organizational and time‑management skills.

Ability to multi‑task and excel under intense deadline pressure in a rapidly changing environment.

Command of media law and principles of ethical conduct.

Valid driver’s license, reliable transportation, and the minimum liability insurance required by state law.

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