About Us:
Duke's Mayo isn't just a condiment. It's a cult favorite, a kitchen staple, a Southern icon, and the #2 mayo brand in the nation - with a fanbase that shows up loud, proud, and occasionally tattooed. We're a team of bold marketers, storytellers, and flavor obsessives building one of the most distinctive brands in food. From deviled eggs and tomato sandwiches to the Duke's Mayo Bowl and the internet's favorite mayo debates, Duke's has a way of turning everyday moments into cultural ones. Now we're looking for someone who can help us make the mayo louder.
Job Summary:
We're looking for a creative, strategic, culture-tuned Social Media Manager to help lead Duke's Mayo across social platforms and fan communities. This person will help shape how Duke's shows up every day - from quick-turn trend content and community replies to major tentpole activations, influencer partnerships, and campaign storytelling.
This is not a "schedule the posts and call it done" role. Duke's social is where brand love becomes brand fame. It's where we fuel our most passionate fans, convert the mayo-curious, amplify our partnerships, and turn moments like the Duke's Mayo Bowl into content people want to talk about.
You'll help bring the Duke's story to life across Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube Shorts, X, and emerging platforms - with a strong sense of what belongs where, what earns attention, and what feels unmistakably Duke's. Some nights and weekends will be required to support live events, cultural moments, and real-time engagement. This position reports to the Marketing Director.
Key Responsibilities:
Social Strategy & Content Planning
- Build and execute monthly content calendars that ladder up to Duke's brand strategy, campaign priorities, and key business moments.
- Translate Duke's positioning, voice, and marketing priorities into platform-specific ideas that feel native, timely, and worth sharing.
- Develop content that fuels brand love, drives engagement, and reinforces what makes Duke's distinct: bold flavor, Southern roots, chef credibility, and a fiercely loyal fanbase.
- Identify cultural moments, food trends, fan behaviors, memes, and conversations where Duke's can show up with relevance and personality.
- Help define the role of each platform - including Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube Shorts, X, and emerging channels - within the broader Duke's social ecosystem.
Community Management & Fan Engagement
- Actively manage and engage with the Duke's community across social platforms.
- Build real relationships with fans, creators, chefs, food lovers, sports fans, and brand loyalists.
- Surface and amplify UGC, fan stories, social mentions, and unexpected moments of Duke's love.
- Help turn casual followers into advocates - the kind of fans who comment, share, defend, recommend, and proudly bring Duke's into their own lives.
- Monitor conversations around Duke's, mayo, food culture, sports partnerships, competitors, and relevant cultural moments.
- Know when to jump in, when to elevate, when to escalate, and when to let the internet do its thing.
Content Creation & Publishing
- Concept, create, write, edit, schedule, and publish content across Duke's social platforms.
- Partner with internal teams, agencies, photographers, videographers, creators, and influencers to bring ideas to life.
- Create and edit short-form video, social-first storytelling, memes, recipes, partner content, behind-the-scenes moments, and real-time event coverage.
- Write copy that sounds like Duke's: confident, flavorful, a little saucy, never generic.
- Maintain a consistent brand voice while flexing tone by platform, audience, and moment.
Tentpole, Partnership & Event Activation
- Help activate major Duke's brand moments through social, including the Duke's Mayo Bowl, Duke's Mayo Classic, chef partnerships, retail programs, merch drops, restaurant collaborations, and other cultural tentpoles.
- Develop social plans that extend partnerships before, during, and after the moment - turning sponsorships and activations into ongoing content stories.
- Attend live events as needed to capture content, engage fans, support creators, and help Duke's show up in real time.
- Collaborate with internal teams and external partners to ensure social plays a meaningful role in every major brand activation.
- Find ways to make Duke's moments more participatory, more shareable, and more fan-fueled.
Influencer & Creator Relationships
- Help identify, build, and manage relationships with creators, influencers, chefs, athletes, entertainers, and real brand fans who can authentically bring Duke's to life.
- Support influencer outreach, briefing, contracting, content development, approvals, publishing, and performance tracking.
- Partner with creators to develop content that feels native to their voice and unmistakably connected to Duke's.
- Track creator performance and help shape future recommendations based on what drives awareness, engagement, credibility, and fan love.
Analytics, Optimization & Social Listening
- Track performance across platforms and translate results into clear, actionable insights.
- Report monthly on platform KPIs, community growth, engagement, content performance, influencer results, and social conversation trends.
- Test formats, hooks, captions, posting times, creator approaches, and content types to improve performance.
- Monitor social conversation and cultural signals to identify opportunities, risks, and emerging fan behaviors.
- Use data and instinct together - knowing what performed, why it mattered, and what we should do next.
Cross-Team Collaboration
- Work closely with brand, creative, media, PR, legal, customer service, sales, shopper, and partnership teams.
- Ensure Duke's social presence supports broader marketing priorities while staying nimble enough to react in real time.
- Partner with agencies and external collaborators to align on content, approvals, voice, community engagement, and performance.
- Help protect the Duke's brand voice and ensure all content is compliant, accurate, and brand-right.
What We're Looking For:
Education & Experience
- 5–7 years managing social media for consumer brands.
- Experience leading social strategy, content development, community management, and platform-specific execution.
- 3+ years working directly with influencers or creators, including outreach, briefing, contracting, content management, and performance reporting.
- Experience supporting live events, brand activations, sponsorships, or cultural tentpoles.
- Bonus: food, CPG, sports, entertainment, lifestyle, or fan-driven brand experience.
Skill Requirements
- Strong instincts for brand voice, tone, visual identity, and cultural relevance.
- Deep understanding of Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube, X, and emerging social platforms.
- Ability to create, edit, and publish content with confidence.
- Strong copywriting skills - especially captions, comments, scripts, hooks, and social-first storytelling.
- Experience with tools like Sprout Social, Later, Canva, CapCut, Adobe Suite, YouTube Studio, Meta Business Suite, and social listening/reporting platforms.
- Ability to manage social budgets and collaborate closely with media partners on social (paid/boosted) amplification.
- Strong understanding of creator content, UGC, influencer partnerships, platform trends, and online communities.
- Comfortable reading performance data and turning it into sharper creative and strategic recommendations.
Personal Characteristics
- You understand the difference between posting content and building a brand people want to be part of.
- You have sharp cultural instincts and know how to spot a good social opportunity before it gets stale.
- You love food, flavor, fandom, internet culture, and the occasional beautifully weird brand moment.
- You can balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution.
- You're energized by passionate fans, messy comment sections, creator brainstorms, live events, and finding the perfect response at exactly the right time.
- You get that Duke's is not trying to be every brand. It has a voice, a point of view, and a fanbase that expects us to show up with some personality.
Other Requirements
- Willingness to occasionally work evenings and weekends for live events, cultural moments, and timely content.
- Ability to travel 20–25% of the time.
- Hybrid role, with preference for candidates based in Richmond, VA.
Why You'll Love It Here
- You'll work on one of the most beloved and distinctive brands in food.
- You'll help fuel a fanbase that already shows up with passion, opinions, recipes, tattoos, and receipts.
- You'll play a key role in bringing major Duke's moments to life - from the Duke's Mayo Bowl to chef partnerships, creator collaborations, and cultural conversations.
- You'll have room to shape the voice, community strategy, and social future of a brand with serious momentum.
- You'll be part of a collaborative, high-performing team that values originality, speed, and smart creative risks.
- And yes, there will be mayo.
What Is In It For You?
Our company acknowledges talented people are attracted to companies that provide competitive pay, comprehensive benefits packages and outstanding advancement opportunities. For this reason we offer a Comprehensive Benefits Plan that includes the following:
- 401K
- Medical/Dental/Vision Coverage
- Vacation, Sick Days and Holidays
- Flexible Spending Accounts
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Employee and Dependent Life Insurance
- Voluntary Disability Insurance
- Other Voluntary Insurance Options
Sauer Brands, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
