Hiring a Director of Social Media Strategy for Marriott requires a job description that reflects the scale, reputation, and complexity of a global hospitality brand. This is not a routine social media management role; it is a senior strategic position responsible for shaping digital brand presence, strengthening guest relationships, protecting brand trust, and driving measurable business outcomes across markets, platforms, and audiences.
TLDR: The best job description for a Marriott Director of Social Media Strategy should clearly define strategic leadership, brand governance, content direction, analytics, stakeholder collaboration, and crisis readiness. It should emphasize hospitality experience, global brand sensitivity, data-driven decision-making, and the ability to lead teams across multiple channels and regions. A strong description also explains performance expectations, key qualifications, and how the role supports guest engagement, loyalty, reputation, and revenue growth.
Role Overview
The Director of Social Media Strategy is responsible for leading the development, execution, and optimization of Marriott’s social media strategy across brand, regional, lifestyle, loyalty, and corporate channels. This role oversees how Marriott communicates with guests, travelers, partners, associates, and the public across major social platforms while ensuring consistency with brand standards, business priorities, and guest experience expectations.
The ideal candidate combines strategic marketing expertise, strong leadership ability, operational discipline, and a deep understanding of hospitality, travel behavior, digital storytelling, and reputation management. This person should be capable of translating business goals into platform-specific strategies that increase engagement, strengthen brand preference, support booking intent, and enhance customer trust.
Recommended Job Title
Director of Social Media Strategy
Optional title variations may include:
- Director, Global Social Media Strategy
- Director, Social Media and Digital Engagement
- Director, Brand Social Strategy
- Senior Director of Social Media Strategy, for broader enterprise responsibilities
For a company with Marriott’s global footprint, the title should communicate seniority, strategic ownership, and cross-functional influence. Avoid titles that imply the role is limited to content posting, community management, or campaign support.
Best Job Description Template
Position Summary:
Marriott is seeking an experienced and highly strategic Director of Social Media Strategy to lead the planning, development, and execution of social media initiatives across key brand, regional, corporate, and customer engagement channels. This role will define the social media vision, establish governance standards, guide content strategy, oversee audience engagement, and ensure measurable impact across platforms.
The Director will collaborate closely with marketing, communications, brand management, loyalty, customer care, public relations, creative, legal, analytics, and regional teams to deliver a unified and effective social media presence. This individual will be responsible for building strategies that support brand awareness, guest loyalty, reputation management, campaign performance, community engagement, and commercial growth.
The successful candidate will bring deep expertise in social media strategy, hospitality or consumer brand marketing, executive-level communication, data analytics, content planning, paid and organic social, influencer strategy, and crisis response. This position requires a leader who can balance creativity with operational rigor and brand protection with audience relevance.
Key Responsibilities
A strong job description should clearly identify what the Director will own, influence, and measure. The responsibilities below reflect the level of leadership expected for a major hospitality organization.
- Develop and lead the enterprise social media strategy across priority platforms, audiences, regions, and business objectives.
- Align social media plans with Marriott’s brand strategy, marketing campaigns, loyalty initiatives, guest experience priorities, and reputation goals.
- Oversee organic and paid social media planning, ensuring content, targeting, messaging, and budgets support measurable outcomes.
- Lead social content strategy, including editorial calendars, campaign concepts, platform-specific formats, storytelling themes, and seasonal priorities.
- Establish social media governance standards for brand voice, publishing workflows, approvals, risk management, compliance, and escalation procedures.
- Partner with brand, regional, and property-level teams to maintain consistency while allowing relevant local market adaptation.
- Use analytics and social listening to identify trends, guest sentiment, competitive activity, cultural shifts, and content opportunities.
- Manage social media performance reporting, including KPIs such as engagement, reach, share of voice, traffic, conversions, sentiment, response time, and campaign ROI.
- Guide influencer and creator strategy, including selection criteria, partnership frameworks, campaign measurement, and brand safety practices.
- Collaborate with customer care and communications teams to address guest feedback, service issues, reputation risks, and public concerns.
- Lead crisis and issues response planning for social channels, ensuring timely, accurate, and brand-appropriate communication.
- Supervise internal teams and agency partners, including social strategists, content creators, community managers, analysts, and paid media specialists.
- Evaluate emerging platforms and technologies, recommending adoption, testing, or avoidance based on business value and brand fit.
- Support executive visibility and corporate communications when social media plays a role in leadership messaging, announcements, or thought leadership.
- Maintain knowledge of privacy, advertising, disclosure, and platform compliance requirements relevant to global social media operations.
Required Qualifications
The qualification section should be specific enough to attract senior professionals while avoiding unnecessary barriers. For Marriott, strong candidates should have proven experience managing complex social ecosystems at scale.
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Public Relations, Business, Hospitality, Digital Media, or a related field.
- 10 or more years of experience in social media strategy, digital marketing, brand communications, or integrated marketing.
- 5 or more years of experience managing teams, agencies, or cross-functional social media programs.
- Demonstrated experience leading social strategy for a global, multi-brand, hospitality, travel, lifestyle, retail, or consumer-facing organization.
- Strong understanding of major social platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and emerging channels.
- Proven ability to connect social media strategy to business objectives, including awareness, loyalty, direct traffic, lead generation, bookings, and customer satisfaction.
- Experience with paid social planning, audience segmentation, campaign optimization, and performance reporting.
- Expertise in social listening, sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, and trend interpretation.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to brief executives and influence senior stakeholders.
- Experience managing brand safety, crisis response, regulatory considerations, and reputational risk on social channels.
Preferred Qualifications
Preferred qualifications help distinguish exceptional candidates from merely qualified applicants. These should be relevant, practical, and aligned with Marriott’s business environment.
- Master’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Business Administration, or a related discipline.
- Experience in the hospitality, travel, tourism, luxury, lifestyle, or guest services sector.
- Knowledge of loyalty programs, customer journey marketing, and direct booking strategies.
- Experience managing social media across multiple countries, languages, cultures, and regulatory environments.
- Familiarity with global brand architecture and portfolio marketing.
- Experience working with franchise, owner, or property-level stakeholders.
- Understanding of influencer contracts, FTC disclosure requirements, usage rights, and brand partnership guidelines.
- Proficiency with enterprise social platforms, analytics dashboards, social listening tools, project management systems, and content management workflows.
Essential Skills and Competencies
A Marriott Director of Social Media Strategy must bring more than platform knowledge. The best candidate should demonstrate strategic judgment, emotional intelligence, and the ability to lead in a fast-moving public environment.
- Strategic leadership: Ability to set a clear social media vision and translate it into actionable plans.
- Brand stewardship: Commitment to maintaining a trusted, consistent, and premium brand presence.
- Guest-centered thinking: Understanding of how travelers research, choose, experience, and review hospitality brands.
- Analytical discipline: Comfort using data to evaluate performance, guide investment, and improve outcomes.
- Creative judgment: Ability to recognize compelling stories, strong visuals, and platform-native content.
- Crisis readiness: Calm and sound decision-making during sensitive, high-visibility, or urgent situations.
- Cross-functional influence: Ability to work effectively with marketing, operations, legal, public relations, customer care, and regional teams.
- Team development: Experience coaching professionals, setting expectations, and building high-performing teams.
- Commercial awareness: Understanding of how social media can support revenue, loyalty, and lifetime customer value.
Performance Expectations
The job description should make clear how success will be measured. For a senior role, performance expectations should include both quantitative and qualitative indicators.
- Improved engagement quality and audience growth across priority platforms.
- Stronger brand consistency across global, regional, and property-level social channels.
- Increased contribution of social media to website traffic, campaign performance, loyalty engagement, and booking consideration.
- Clear reporting frameworks that connect social activity to business outcomes.
- More effective response to guest feedback, issues, and reputation risks.
- High-performing content programs aligned with audience behavior and brand priorities.
- Efficient management of agencies, budgets, tools, and internal resources.
- Successful integration of social insights into broader marketing and business planning.
Reporting Structure
This role should typically report to a senior leader in marketing, brand, digital, or communications. Depending on organizational design, appropriate reporting lines may include:
- Vice President of Global Brand Marketing
- Vice President of Digital Marketing
- Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications
- Chief Marketing Officer, in smaller or more centralized structures
The Director should also have strong working relationships with public relations, loyalty marketing, customer experience, revenue management, legal, human resources, regional leadership, and hotel operations. Social media touches nearly every part of the hospitality experience, so the role must be positioned with enough authority to coordinate action across teams.
Compensation and Benefits Language
A trustworthy job description should include transparent compensation guidance where legally required or competitively appropriate. The language should be professional and flexible.
Example: “The salary range for this position will be based on location, experience, qualifications, and internal equity. Marriott may also offer performance-based incentives, comprehensive health and wellness benefits, retirement programs, paid time off, travel-related benefits, professional development opportunities, and other benefits consistent with company policy.”
This wording avoids overpromising while signaling that the role is senior and competitive. If the posting applies to a specific jurisdiction, include the legally required pay range and benefits disclosures.
What Makes This Job Description Strong
The best version of this job description is clear, specific, and credible. It does not describe the Director as a person who simply “runs social media.” Instead, it frames the position as a strategic leadership role responsible for protecting and advancing one of the world’s most recognized hospitality brands in public digital spaces.
A strong description also emphasizes measurement. Senior social media leaders must demonstrate business contribution, not only creative output. Engagement is important, but it should be interpreted alongside sentiment, customer care performance, campaign lift, direct traffic, brand preference, loyalty engagement, and revenue-related indicators.
Another important strength is the inclusion of governance and crisis management. For a hospitality brand, social media can quickly become the public front line for guest complaints, operational disruptions, safety concerns, cultural moments, and breaking news. The Director must have the structure, judgment, and partnerships needed to respond responsibly.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Many organizations weaken senior social media postings by making them too tactical or vague. A Marriott-level job description should avoid the following mistakes:
- Overemphasizing posting duties instead of strategy, leadership, governance, and performance.
- Ignoring global complexity, including regional differences, cultural awareness, and multilingual considerations.
- Leaving out crisis response, even though social media is central to modern reputation management.
- Failing to mention analytics or business impact in meaningful detail.
- Using trendy language without substance, such as “viral growth” or “social guru,” which can undermine professionalism.
- Not clarifying stakeholder relationships, especially with public relations, customer care, legal, and regional teams.
Final Recommended Posting Language
For the strongest final version, use direct and serious language: “Marriott is seeking a strategic, data-driven, and experienced Director of Social Media Strategy to lead enterprise social media planning, governance, content direction, performance measurement, and digital engagement. This leader will guide how Marriott connects with guests and audiences across social platforms while supporting brand trust, marketing effectiveness, loyalty, and business growth.”
This statement is concise, credible, and appropriately senior. It communicates the heart of the role without exaggeration. The best job description for a Marriott Director of Social Media Strategy should ultimately attract candidates who understand that social media is not only a marketing channel. It is a public expression of the brand, a guest relationship platform, a source of business intelligence, and a critical part of modern hospitality leadership.
