Social Media Manager

BAT is evolving at pace into a global multi-category business. Our purpose is to create A Better Tomorrow™ by Building a Smokeless World.

To achieve our ambition, we are looking for colleagues who are ready to join us on this journey! Tomorrow can’t wait, let’s shape it together!

About the Role

Lead the next chapter of social media in Japan, with the autonomy to shape culture, grow communities, and build a high-performing social capability.

We are looking for a social media leader to shape how our brands participate in culture, build communities, grow audiences, and turn social performance into measurable brand and business impact in Japan.

Leading one direct report and an extended agency analytics team, you will set the vision, raise creative ambition, and build a high-performing social capability. You will have genuine ownership, with the freedom to challenge, experiment, and create culturally relevant work, alongside clear accountability for its performance.

This is not a traditional social media management role. You will operate in a highly regulated environment, combining creative ambition with sound judgement and disciplined governance. The challenge is not simply to create more content, but to find distinctive, responsible, and culturally relevant ways for our brands to participate in social.

We recognise that outstanding social leaders can come from different backgrounds. If you have built audiences, shaped culture, led people and partners, and delivered measurable impact, we encourage you to apply even if your experience does not follow a traditional path.

Team Leadership and Key Relationships

You will directly lead and develop the Social Media Executive and provide strategic direction to an extended agency team supporting analytics and reporting. You will work closely with Brand, Consumer Experience, PR, CRM, Paid Media, Legal, Corporate Affairs, and global teams to bring the social strategy to life.

Internal

External

Strategy, Campaign Planning and Marketing Deployment Teams

Creative Agency Partners

Omni-channel Marketing Team

Content Partners

Brand & Category Team

• Platform and Analytics Partners
• Global Content and Partnership Teams
• Legal and Corporate Affairs

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and Develop the Social Media Function
• Lead and develop BAT Japan’s social media capability, setting a clear vision, standards, and ways of working.
• Coach and develop the Social Media Executive, building confidence, capability, and accountability.
• Direct the extended agency team, ensuring objectives, priorities, and performance expectations are clear.
• Build a culture of creativity, accountability, continuous learning, and experimentation.
• Empower the team and partners to challenge convention, test new ideas, and take ownership of outcomes.
• Balance cultural relevance and creative excellence with disciplined performance management and commercial impact.
• Champion the capabilities, tools, and processes needed to continuously improve social performance.

Lead Social Strategy

• Define and lead the social media strategy across all relevant channels.
• Establish clear channel roles, content pillars, and growth plans.
• Build annual and quarterly social roadmaps aligned to brand and business objectives.
• Identify opportunities for social media to lead campaigns rather than simply amplify them.
• Own social performance targets including audience growth, engagement, reach, and content effectiveness.

Drive Cultural Relevance

• Stay ahead of cultural, lifestyle, entertainment, fashion, music, creator, and digital trends, identifying the signals that matter for our brands and audiences.
• Identify emerging opportunities that can strengthen brand relevance and consumer engagement.
• Translate cultural insights into compelling social-first initiatives and content platforms.
• Act as the voice of culture within the marketing organisation.
• Build Communities and Engagement
• Develop strategies that drive meaningful community participation and advocacy.
• Grow audiences while improving engagement quality and retention.
• Create social experiences that encourage conversation, sharing, participation, and community building.
• Explore new formats, features, and engagement tools to deepen audience connections.
• Lead Content and Creative Excellence
• Set the creative ambition for social, turning cultural insight, platform behaviour, and audience understanding into ideas people choose to watch, share, and participate in.
• Champion social-first storytelling that is culturally relevant, premium, and distinctive.
• Ensure all content reflects brand strategy while remaining authentic to platform behaviour and audience expectations.
• Create the conditions for brave, distinctive work by giving teams and partners a clear creative direction, space to experiment, and accountability for results.
• Build Cultural Relationships and Communities
• Develop and nurture an ongoing network of cultural collaborators, creative talent, tastemakers, and community partners relevant to the brand’s positioning and Japan’s cultural landscape.
• Build trusted, long-term relationships through regular dialogue, shared interests, and meaningful engagement beyond individual campaigns or events.
• Work closely with PR, Brand, Consumer Experience, and agency partners to identify relevant individuals and communities for approved cultural initiatives, experiences, and collaborations.
• Take ownership of relationship planning and coordination, ensuring clear responsibilities, thoughtful engagement, and consistent follow-up across internal teams and agencies.
• Bring insights from these relationships into social strategy, content development, and experience planning to strengthen cultural relevance and audience understanding.
• Evaluate talent effectiveness and optimise investments using performance data and audience insights.
• Ensure all engagement and collaboration follows applicable internal policies, approval processes, and local requirements.
• Develop long-term creator ecosystems that support sustainable brand growth.
• Turn Performance into Growth
• Set the measurement framework for social, connecting audience growth, engagement, content performance, and cultural relevance to broader brand and business objectives.
• Lead the agency analytics resource, ensuring reporting produces clear insights, decisions, and actions rather than data alone.
• Use audience intelligence, social listening, and platform performance to identify growth opportunities and improve creative effectiveness.
• Build a test-and-learn culture across the team and agency partners, using evidence to continuously optimise performance.
• Clearly communicate social performance, implications and recommended actions to senior stakeholders
• Lead Agencies and Stakeholders
• Serve as the strategic lead across all social and creator agency partners.
• Build strong partnerships while maintaining high standards of accountability and performance.
• Collaborate closely with Brand, PR, Consumer Experience, CRM, and Paid Media teams.
• Influence senior stakeholders through clear storytelling, strategic thinking, and business-focused recommendations.

What Success Looks Like

• A clear and distinctive social presence that relevant audiences actively choose to follow, engage with, and participate in.
• Sustained growth in relevant followers, reach, engagement quality, and community participation.
• Social established as a source of culturally relevant ideas and brand growth, not only a channel for campaign amplification.
• A confident, accountable, and creatively ambitious team supported by high-performing agency partners.
• Performance intelligence consistently translated into faster decisions, stronger creative work, and continuous improvement.
• Essential Experience and Capabilities
• 5+ years or significant experience in social media, content strategy, creator marketing, brand communications, or digital marketing, with evidence of leading strategy, teams, and measurable growth.
• Proven ownership of social strategy and delivery of audience, engagement, or brand-growth outcomes.
• People leadership experience, including developing direct reports and directing agency specialists.
• Deep understanding of major social platforms and how audience behaviour, creative conventions, community dynamics, and measurement differ by channel.
• Strong knowledge of Japan’s cultural, creator, and digital landscape.
• Ability to translate cultural insight and performance data into creative, commercial, and investment decisions.
• Strong commercial judgement and the ability to connect social activity to wider brand and business objectives.
• Strong agency and stakeholder leadership, including the ability to influence and communicate with senior audiences.
• Written and verbal English-language proficiency.
• Japanese-language capability is advantageous but not essential. Candidates must demonstrate the ability to operate effectively within Japan’s cultural, creator, and digital ecosystem, working with local-language specialists where required.

Desirable Experience

Experience with premium consumer or lifestyle brands.

Experience connecting social with CRM, PR, experiential marketing, creators, or paid media.

Experience introducing new formats, platforms, tools, or measurement approaches.

Experience operating in a regulated or governance-intensive environment.

Experience working in Japan or within Japan’s cultural, consumer, creator, and digital ecosystem.

WHY JOIN BAT?

We’re one of the few companies named as a Global Top Employer by the Top Employers Institute – certified in offering excellent employee conditions.

Collaboration, inclusion and partnership underpin everything we do here at BAT. We are looking forward to enabling every individual to thrive, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, skills, experience, education, socio-economic and professional background, veteran status, perspectives and thinking styles. We know that embracing talent from all backgrounds is what makes us stronger and best prepared to meet our business goals.

Come bring your difference and see what is possible for you at BAT. Learn more about our culture and our award winning employee experience here.

If you require any reasonable adjustments or accommodations to help you perform at your best during the recruitment process, you are encouraged to notify us. We are fully committed to support you by making appropriate arrangements for you to demonstrate your full potential.