UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, hope.

 

Consultancy Title: Social Media Content Consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Programme Group, Generation Unlimited (YPA) secretariat, UNICEF NYHQ

Duration: 20 December 2024 to 19 December 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

 

About UNICEF 

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

 

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere. Over the decades, UNICEF has worked to protect the rights of children of all ages — from earliest childhood through adolescence – and will continue to deliver for all children and adolescents under the five goal areas of the Strategic Plan. In recent years, UNICEF’s work to support the unique needs of adolescents has gained momentum, as the challenges facing them have come more sharply into view. The second decade of life is a time of tremendous opportunity – but for far too many adolescents, great risk and increasing challenges. 

Building on work across the UN with and for young people, and in line with the UN Youth Strategy, UNICEF in 2018 launched a new global partnership dedicated to skilling and connecting young people, aged 10-24, to opportunities in employment, entrepreneurship and social impact. Generation Unlimited (GenU) is centered on finding new ways to ensure that every young person is in school, learning, training, or employment by 2030 — with a focus on those in the greatest danger of being left behind, including girls, the poorest, those with disabilities, young people on the move and those affected by conflict and natural disasters. This partnership brings together leaders from governments, UN agencies, the private sector, academia, international and civil society organizations, and young people to identify, co-create and scale up innovative solutions to expand opportunities for youth. Young people participate meaningfully in the co-creation of solutions by informing, advising, and helping in implementation every step of the way. 

To drive awareness and advocacy around the youth skills-to-opportunity gap and inspire action to better prepare young people for the future of work and life, GenU’s communications approach involves strengthening its executive thought leadership to drive peer-to-peer engagement and leveraging the reach and influence of its public-private-youth partners. To implement these strategies, GenU requires the services of a social media content consultant who will shape messaging and assets for executive leadership tailored for a diverse set of audiences, monitor results and conversations for community engagement and inform optimized content approach for LinkedIn.

The learnings they share from this work will contribute towards GenU’s advocacy and communications strategy.

The consultant will be offered a 12-month contract paid on receipt of each deliverable as outlined below. This is a remote assignment.

 

Scope of Work:

Under the supervision of the Communication Manager, the consultant will implement strategic content and community engagement plans for the Generation Unlimited (GenU) leadership team.

In consultation with the GenU leadership team, the consultant will also create content for individual GenU executives to drive peer-to-peer engagement that will support GenU’s work.

They will also track the performance of GenU, its campaigns, and associations with a growing network of partners on social media. These results will be shared with the Communications team to optimize content. 

Content must align with the overall GenU advocacy strategy and perspectives of GenU leadership team, thus requiring coordination with the Front Office, Programmes and Partnerships teams and the Young People’s Action Team as needed. At the beginning of the contract term, the consultant will participate in a session to receive a full briefing from the GenU communications team in person and confirm social media plans.

The consultant will be responsible to:

• Implement LinkedIn peer-to-peer engagement strategy for GenU executive leadership and coordinate with individual executives to create content on their behalf.
• Develop social media content for executive channels to engage partners, with a particular focus on LinkedIn.
• Write stories featuring perspectives on key trends and conversations on youth skills and livelihoods for social media and the GenU website, liaising with the Programmes Team and Young People’s Action Team as needed.
• Conduct community engagement on LinkedIn, monitoring and responding to queries and responses from GenU channel.
• Track performance of GenU, its campaigns and association with a growing network of partners on social media, assessing and sharing learnings at the end of the project.
• Travel to participate in an in-person communications team training and working session at the beginning of contract term.
• Travel to develop real-time content for the GenU leadership team and support with community management around specified conference.

 

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

Travel to the UK/Europe for an in-person training at the beginning of contract term. Inform LinkedIn engagement strategy for three GenU executives.

• Prepare preliminary social media engagement plan and timelines (15 Jan 2025).
• Create co-drafted audit of GenU leadership presence on LinkedIn, helping identify challenges and opportunities to strengthen engagements (31 Jan 2025).
• Draft content plan for three executives (six posts each), including recommended content themes (15 Feb 2025).
• Prepare a report listing key takeaways based on input from GenU leadership team on proposed content opportunities             (30 February 2025)

Develop social media engagement guidelines to facilitate timely and consistent response.

• Prepare social engagement guide with a list of appropriate responses for partner and peer-to-peer content engagement (10 March 2025).
• Prepare community engagement report on executive accounts of partners (10 March 2025).
• Create updated guidelines to respond to queries and comments on partner content and channels (30 March 2025).

Develop social media content for GenU executives, based on inputs from prior consultative meetings, highlighting their perspectives on timely topics and participation in relevant events.

• Six social media assets (visual and text) created for three GenU executives (two each) featuring their perspectives on timely trends, observances, and milestones based on input from prior consultative meetings (10 April 2025).
• Six social media assets (visual and text) created for three GenU executives (two each) featuring their participation in timely events and conferences around UN General Assembly, based on input from prior consultative meetings (30 September 2025).

Write stories featuring perspectives on key trends and conversations on youth skills and livelihoods for social media and the GenU website, liaising with the Programmes Team and the Young People’s Action Team as needed.

• Develop four stories featuring perspectives on key trends and conversations on youth skills and livelihoods for the website and/or social media (15 May 2025).
• Develop six pieces of content on the Founding Partner’s story, perspective, or product for the website and/or social media (30 May 2025).
• Work with public sector partners to develop three pieces of content on the partner’s story, perspective, or product for the website and/or social media (10 June 2025).

Travel to COP30 in Brazil to develop real-time content for the GenU leadership team and support with community management around the conference.

• Ten social media assets (visual and text) created for five GenU executives for live posting at COP30 (19 December 2025).
• One long-form text story based on GenU’s presence at COP30 (19 December 2025)
• Report on number of engagements on GenU executive’s posts around COP30 and learnings on collaboration efforts (19 December 2025)

Track annual performance of Generation Unlimited, its campaigns and association with growing network of partners on social media.

• Deck created with insights on performance of posts created for partners and GenU executives, leveraging their channels, and related engagement efforts (19 December 2025)

 

Qualifications

Education: 

Advanced university degree (Bachelors) in the area of Communications, marketing, design, innovation, social science, or other related degree.

 

Work experience:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *: 

• At least 3 years of work experience including internships and apprenticeships in graphic design, digital storytelling, executive thought leadership.
• Expert level designer and user of graphic and video design software such as Canva, Adobe Illustrator, In-Design, InVideo, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro.
• Experience in using scheduling and analytics software such as Hootsuite, Talkwalker.
• Experience developing strategic social media engagement plans and creating graphic content for diverse stakeholders, such as youth platforms, governments, civil society organizations or businesses.
• Experience developing thought leadership content for executives on social media.
• Experience with treatments for social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities within specified timeframes, across multiple teams and time zones. 
• Fluency in English is required. knowledge of another official UN language or a local language is an asset. 

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and

- Upload copy of academic credentials

- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability

- Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

- At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

- Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

Individuals engaged under a consultancy will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants. Consultants are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.