JOB DESCRIPTION

POSITION: YouTube Manager

REPORTS TO: Head of Digital

LOCATION: Africa

Long term

Full time

UBONGO is Africa’s leading producer of kids’ edutainment. As a non-profit social enterprise, we create fun, localised and multi-platform educational content that helps kids learn, and leverage their learning to change their lives. Ubongo reaches millions of families across Africa through accessible technologies like TV, radio and mobile phones. Our show’s Ubongo Kids and Akili and Me currently air in 31 countries across Africa, in Swahili, English, French, and Kinyarwanda. We are currently adapting the shows to even more languages including Kikuyu, Luo, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and Twi. This is a great time to join an organisation that’s rapidly growing across the continent, and work with a creative and impact-driven team committed to reaching as many families in Africa with life-changing edutainment. We are also creating a variety of digital products that enable kids to engage further with our stories. Among our range of digital products is our inventory of YouTube channels!

We are looking for a visionary, passionate and diligent  YouTube Manager, to take ownership of growing the reach and impact of our online video content for kids in Africa and around the world. Working at Ubongo won’t be easy, but it will challenge and excite you with lots of responsibilities, plenty of fun, and give you the opportunity to impact the lives of millions of kids every day

Why is this an exciting opportunity?

We currently get over 15 million views per month across our YouTube channels, and are looking to 10x that to 150 million monthly views over the next few years. Ubongo’s YouTube channels aim to educate and entertain kids in their own languages, telling stories that they can relate to with characters who they look like. Our viewers come from across the globe. We regularly receive testimonies from parents of our YouTube audience saying how much their kids are learning, and how grateful they are to have found representative content!

As the Ubongo YouTube Manager, you will have direct reach into the lives of millions of kids in Africa and across the world. You will make decisions about how we grow the platform to reach as many kids as possible as well as what content we share, in order to ensure key learning outcomes that kids can harness to improve their lives.

What does this look like day-to-day?

Daily tasks of the YouTube Manager will include setting the upload schedules for our YouTube channels, handling video uploads and setting of video metadata. As well as this, the YouTube Manager will set up new channels and maintain existing channels. The YouTube Manager will also analyse the analytics coming out of the channels to monitor channel/video performance. There will also be some research and experimentation required as you look into how best we can increase reach, engagement and revenue on our channels.

You will also regularly hold strategy-setting calls across the digital, production, business and adaptation teams, making decisions that affect the way we use YouTube from the top down.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Refine and implement scheduling and uploading processes to maximize growth of our channels, their reach and their impact.

Main Activities:

• Developing the processes that we have in place for scheduling the upload of content
• Setting the annual/ monthly schedules for videos across all of our channels
• Communicating with the Adaptation, Production and Post Production teams to know what content is ready to share on YouTube
• Coordinating uploads of new videos and promotional videos with the marketing team
• Creating video metadata (titles, tags, thumbnails) and playlists.
• Working with the adaptation team to get metadata translated into other languages
• Uploading video metadata and publishing videos to YouTube!
• Developing solutions that integrate YouTube workflows with the workflows of our other products like the Toolkits Platform*

1. Optimize existing YouTube channels and strategically develop and roll out new channels

Main Activities:

• Optimize existing channels by keeping written information (e.g. channel descriptions) and visuals (e.g. channel icons and banners) up-to-date and adjusting for SEO and ‘stickiness’
• Strategizing with Adaptation and Marketing teams about which channels to launch and when, and implementing launch plans
• Setting up new channels for new content (by show and by language)
• Regularly checking channel analytics and communicating highlights with the rest of the digital team

1. Research and experiment to maximise reach (unique viewers) and engagement (watchtime).

Main Activities:

• Monitor and analyze YouTube Studio analytics daily and identify trends over time
• Read articles and watch videos about how YouTube’s algorithm works and what kind of content, metadata and scheduling works best on the platform
• Run experiments based on theories developed by yourself and your team, and share results/ learnings/ strategic updates with broader Ubongo team
• Integrate lessons learned into daily practise and update the YouTube playbook
• Update the rest of the digital team on trends and findings

There will also be room to provide your knowledge and expertise to other teams at Ubongo. 

REQUIREMENT:

TO BE A MATCH, YOU’LL NEED TO BE:

• A YouTuber/ vlogger/ social media expert, with experience uploading videos and maintaining channel(s).
• Passionate about video (watching, creating, editing, sharing etc.)
• Ready and able to take on all the challenges listed above (and many more, down the line) as we scale! A bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant subject (like media or communications) would be an added advantage. But we’re more interested in your ability to get the job done than your qualifications
• Extremely organized and process oriented
• Able to GET THINGS DONE. You will be a team of one who needs to coordinate and manage across all departments in Ubongo to get this project launched!
• Comfortable dealing with and understanding digital products (apps, video etc.)
• Passionate for Ubongo’s vision of bringing localized edutainment to learners across Africa
• A super troubleshooter!
• Able to speak and write (work) in English and preferably another African language – we’re a bilingual office.
• Good at dealing with ambiguity and able to figure things out for yourself
• Willing to speak up for what’s right, when you see wrong, or when you think there might be a better way
• Someone who loves kids. They’re why we do what we do. They’re running around our office all the time. Our kids’ music and videos will become part of your life (and be constantly stuck in your head).

Phew! You made it through that. The good thing is that there are also perks, like delicious healthy lunch at the office, health insurance, and you get to watch cartoons at work!

*We are currently planning to align our YouTube uploads with our uploads of video to the Toolkits platform. You will also be involved in helping us develop this process, to ensure that content developed for YouTube is also shared on platforms like the Toolkits Platform.