JOB OVERVIEW:
The Social Media Associate Manager, Community is responsible for leading Darden's Community function across its portfolio of restaurant brands. This role oversees community engagement strategy, day-to-day operations, social listening and intelligence, platform governance, and technology partnerships that strengthen brand affinity, protect reputation, and deepen guest relationships across social media.
As the leader of a high-performing Community Engagement team, this individual partners closely with Brand Social Media Managers, Guest Relations, PR, Communications, Operations, Legal, Consumer Insights, agencies, and technology partners to ensure meaningful, consistent, and brand-aligned interactions with audiences. The role balances strategic thinking with hands-on execution, guiding community strategy while supporting real-time engagement, crisis response, and operational excellence.
The Associate Manager also serves as the internal expert on social management and listening platforms, driving workflow optimization, governance, reporting, team adoption, and continuous innovation to improve how Darden engages, listens to, and learns from its audiences.
This role requires night and weekend accessibility, as the Darden Community Engagement teams work Monday - Sunday until 9pm ET. It's also imperative to be a working leader, who is always willing to step-in and help when the team needs a hand.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
Community Strategy & Brand Support:
-Lead community engagement strategy and operations across Darden brands, ensuring a consistent brand voice while adapting to platform trends, audience expectations, and real-time conversations.
-Develop community-focused plans that support marketing campaigns, cultural moments, guest engagement initiatives, influencer partnerships, reputation management, and opportunistic content opportunities.
-Maintain and evolve community management playbooks, engagement standards, escalation processes, response protocols, and governance guidelines.
-Partner with Brand Social Media Managers to translate audience insights into actionable social media strategies and engagement recommendations.
-Identify opportunities to strengthen audience relationships, improve guest experiences, and build long-term brand loyalty through meaningful interaction.
Social Intelligence & Insights:
-Leverage social listening, community feedback, sentiment analysis, and cultural trends to identify emerging opportunities, risks, and audience needs.
-Monitor industry trends, platform updates, and cultural conversations to help brands remain relevant and responsive.
-Translate social intelligence into strategic recommendations that influence content planning, community strategy, and business decisions.
Leadership & Team Development:
-Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing Community Engagement team (6-10 direct reports) through clear expectations, ongoing feedback, professional development, and recognition.
-Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, continuous improvement, and service-minded engagement.
Technology, Vendor Management & Innovation:
-Serve as the internal subject matter expert for Darden's social media management, engagement, listening, and reporting platforms.
-Optimize platform capabilities, workflows, governance, reporting structures, tagging systems, and team adoption.
-Build and maintain strategic relationships with platform partners and vendors, providing feedback, driving improvements, and maximizing business value.
Operational Excellence & Crisis Support:
-Oversee community management workflows, staffing considerations, escalation protocols, governance standards, quality assurance processes, and operational efficiency.
-Make sound decisions in fast-moving environments while balancing brand reputation, guest expectations, business priorities, and operational considerations.
-Maintain a hands-on approach to daily operations and provide engagement support during high-priority business needs, evenings, weekends, holidays, or crisis situations when necessary.
Reporting & Executive Storytelling:
-Analyze quantitative and qualitative performance data to evaluate engagement, sentiment, operational efficiency, and community effectiveness.
-Develop executive-ready presentations, dashboards, reports, internal communications, and visual storytelling that communicate performance, insights, and strategic recommendations.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
EXPERIENCE:
-6+ years of experience in social media, including community management, audience engagement, social listening, reputation management, guest recovery, and crisis communications.
-Minimum 2 years of leadership experience managing people, projects, programs, or cross-functional initiatives.
TECHNICAL SKILLS:
-Deep knowledge of major social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, X, and emerging channels.
-Expertise with social media management, engagement, publishing, listening, and reporting platforms; enterprise-level platform experience preferred.
-Superior communication, organizational and time management skills with a proven ability to independently manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
-Strong quantitative and qualitative analytical capabilities with the ability to translate complex data into actionable insights and compelling narratives.
-Proficiency with Microsoft Office, presentation tools, collaboration software, and visual design and storytelling platforms.
EDUCATION:
-Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Public Relations, Business, Digital Media, or a related field.
OTHER KEY QUALIFICATIONS:
-Digitally fluent, curious, and proactive, with passion for cultural trends, audience behavior, platform innovation, AI-enabled solutions, emerging technologies, hospitality, and service-minded guest engagement.
-Ability to influence stakeholders at all levels through clear communication, strong judgment, data-driven recommendations, thoughtful decision-making, and executive presence.
-Comfortable making informed decisions in ambiguous, fast-moving, and high-visibility environments while balancing brand reputation, audience expectations, business needs, and operational realities.
PREFERRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE:
-Experience within hospitality, restaurant, retail, CPG, or other customer-focused brands.
-Agency experience and/or experience working within a matrixed organization.
-Experience leading community management, audience engagement, social listening, customer care, crisis communications, or reputation management programs at scale.
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