Senior Social Marketing Executive

A bit about us

The Sawday’s group is a pioneering family of travel brands united by a deep passion for extraordinary places to stay. Places that stir the soul, connect people to nature and community, and turn every trip into something truly memorable.

• Sawday’s offers self-catering places, B&Bs, hotels and pubs, all personally inspected.
• Canopy & Stars takes you off the beaten path with treehouses, cabins, yurts and other magical escapes.

• Paws & Stay finds unforgettable adventures for people and their dogs.

• Crown & Canopy is our expert consultancy, helping owners turn wild ideas and empty fields into extraordinary places.

We’re proud to be 52% employee-owned, with the rest held by a Charitable Trust and our founding family. We are a certified B Corp and amongst the highest scoring travel B Corps in the world. We’re also recognised for being in the top 5% in the world for caring for employees.

Sustainability and ethics are at the heart of what we do. Every employee, every team, every decision contributes to our mission to demonstrate that tourism can be done better and that it has a positive role to play in society and in protecting the environment.

This role involves working across Sawday’s and Paws & Stay.

Your role

As Senior Social Marketing Executive, you will take responsibility for the planning and implementation of social media activity across Sawday's and Paws & Stay, with a particular focus on shaping the visual identity of both brands. Working within a strategy set alongside the Marketing Manager, Group Social Media Manager and wider marketing team, you will be responsible for translating that strategy into high-quality, high-performing social content — leading on image selection, visual editing, content creation and community management, while also contributing to broader marketing activity.

Your primary responsibility is on the delivery and continuous improvement of social content across all active channels, with strong ownership of visual identity and creative decision-making and performance. This includes planning and maintaining the content calendar, editing and selecting imagery and video, briefing and working with freelancers and content creators, and ensuring all output is on-brand, commercially focused and built to perform.

Alongside this, working closely with Paws & Stay and Sawday's marketing teams and Group Social Media Manager, you will contribute to campaign planning, paid social activity and partnerships — playing a key role in pushing the social strategy forward and growing both brands' presence and audiences.

We trust our team with high autonomy, and we want you to bring your own ideas, stay ahead of platform trends, and take clear ownership of results.

Reports to

Marketing Manager

Works with

• Group Social Media Manager

• Senior Copywriter

• Marketing and Communications team

• Business development team

• Owner & guest experience team (Paws & Stay)

• Membership team (Sawday’s)

• Platform team

Main tasks and responsibilities

• Social strategy and planning – Lead the development and implementation of social media strategy for Sawday’s and Paws & Stay overseen by the Group Social Media Manager, contributing to the overall marketing strategy for both brands. Build and maintain a rolling content calendar across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and emerging platforms, planned at least six weeks ahead.

• Visual content collection, selection and editing – Take ownership of image and video selection across all Paws & Stay and Sawday's social channels, choosing the right assets to tell a compelling, on-brand story. Organise and attend trips to collect your own original social content, briefing external photographers and videographers, arranging shoots, staging and guiding creative direction. Edit photo and video content for social using tools such as Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro or CapCut, ensuring all output is polished and platform-appropriate

• Creative direction – Develop and protect a consistent visual identity for Sawday’s and Paws & Stay on social. Brief and direct freelance photographers and videographers to ensure shoots deliver assets that serve the content plan.

• Content creator trips – Working with the communications team, organise content creator and influencer trips and place visits — managing logistics, briefing creators and ensuring content captured meets the brief and sign-off process.

• Photography and video asset management – Maintain organised, accessible storage of all photography and video assets, in our AI searchable image library, working with the wider team on rights management, usage contracts and group-wide efficiency.

• Content creation and community management – Plan and create original social content including reels, stories, carousels and static posts, and manage day-to-day community engagement across Sawday’s and Paws & Stay channels including comments, DMs, tagged posts and UGC, in line with brand voice.

• Campaigns and marketing activity – Plan and implement integrated social campaigns across brand, acquisition and loyalty objectives. Brief and approve email communications alongside the wider team — including sales, brand and loyalty emails (build handled separately). Support website merchandising, landing page updates and content builds as required.

• Paid social – Manage and optimise paid social advertising for Sawday’s and Paws & Stay, tracking performance and making data-led decisions to improve reach and return.

• Partnerships – Work with the comms team to identify, develop and manage partnerships and content creator relationships that amplify both brands.

• Analysis and reporting – Contribute to quarterly social reporting for Paws & Stay and Sawday's, providing learnings and clear recommendations. Maintain an up-to-date understanding of platform best practices, trends and algorithm changes.

• SEO collaboration – Work closely with the SEO team to ensure social activity supports the broader organic strategy.

Skills and experience

Necessary

• 3–4+ years' experience in social media with demonstrable ownership of a brand's social presence

• An exceptional eye for visual content — able to make strong creative decisions about imagery and video quickly and confidently

• Hands-on experience editing photo and video content using tools such as Adobe Lightroom, Premiere Pro, CapCut or similar

• Strong understanding of Instagram, Facebook and TikTok and how to create content that performs natively on each platform

• Experience using a social media scheduling tool

• Experience in briefing and directing photographers, videographers and content creators

• Competent copywriter with the ability to adapt tone of voice across formats and audiences

• Solid understanding of social media analytics and a data-informed approach to decision-making

• Ability to produce and interpret performance reports, using data to inform decisions and activity

• Highly organised with the ability to manage multiple workstreams at pace

• Excellent attention to detail

• Excellent communicator — comfortable working across teams and managing your own workload autonomously

• Drive to do things better and differently

• Driven, enthusiastic with a keen passion to produce work to a consistently high standard

• Full UK driving licence (required for content shoots)

• Eligible to work in the UK

Desirable

• Experience in travel, hospitality or a lifestyle brand, particularly with an independent or values-led ethos

• Experience planning and executing paid social campaigns

• Experience managing UGC programmes and content creator partnerships

• Knowledge of social SEO and how organic search and social strategies work together

• Familiarity with email marketing platforms and campaign planning

• Professional qualification in Marketing or Digital Marketing (e.g. CIM) or a degree in a relevant discipline

Salary and benefits

• £33 - £35K FTE, depending on experience

• 30–37.5 hours per week (full time or part time / 30 hours considered)

• Flexi time and hybrid working, with the option to work some time from home as well as 2-3 days in the office (needs to be commutable from Bristol).

• Company pension scheme with enhanced employer contributions at 4%, and an optional salary sacrifice scheme.

• An employee-owned company: after your introductory period, you will be eligible to a share of any dividends

• A special place to work: a colourful, upcycled, recycled, open plan office on Bristol’s buzzing harbourside

• DEIBA Team: a team focused on diversity & inclusion efforts for our employees and customers

• £290 per year towards staying in one of our special places

• 20% employee discount and 10% family & friends discount on UK based Canopy & Stars breaks, 15% discount on EU based breaks.

• 15% employee discount and 8% family & friends discount on Paws & Stay breaks in the UK.

• Enhanced maternity and paternity pay

• A volunteering day per year

• 15 wellbeing hours per year (pro rata)

• A ‘Climate Journey Day’ policy, which gives you the opportunity to earn up to two paid days per year to travel to and from a holiday destination using low-carbon transport.

• Social and wellbeing events held throughout the year

Applications

• Applicants need to be within a commutable distance of Bristol for in office working

• Closing date for applications: 17 June 2026

Our Behaviours and Values
How we work is just as important as the success we achieve at Sawday’s. During your time with us, you will be expected to treasure, protect, and embody our behaviours and values every day.

We celebrate quirkiness and difference

We dance to the beat of our own drum

We encourage curiosity and creativity

We champion individuality and the ‘special’

We follow head and heart

We are solidly commercial while flexible and ‘human’

We are empathetic, generous and supportive

We make ethical, holistic, long-term decisions

We do important things brilliantly

We use business as a force for social, environmental and economic good

We are committed to our craft and deliver with ambition and purpose

We relish our role in sustaining a happy, healthy world

We bring positive energy

We foster a genuine spirit of togetherness and family

We take pleasure in empowering and delighting others

We are driven to learn, grow, connect and contribute

Finally

We place a strong emphasis on ethics, people and the environment and it is important to us that you understand, strongly identify with, and are able to develop the company ethos.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and an inclusive company, where diverse backgrounds and perspectives are valued and where everyone can bring their full, authentic selves to work.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview to any disabled candidate who meets all the ‘Necessary’ skills listed above and is a commutable distance from the office.

If you need any further assistance with your application, or require the application form in a different format, please email Charlotte on charlotte@sawdays.co.uk or call 0117 204 7828.