Head of Social Media & Creators
ABOUT US
------------
Our vision is to be the world’s leading social travel platform.
We are on a mission to help travellers find their people and create unforgettable moments together. Connections matter as much as destinations, and we are building a global ecosystem to enable them.
Since the launch of our social network in the hostelling category in 2022, Hostelworld has experienced transformational growth. We have successfully welcomed over 2\.6 million social members to our platform, proving the strong demand for connection in travel. This vibrant community is not just booking trips; they are actively engaging, co\-creating, and becoming our most powerful brand advocates. The platform is rich with user\-generated content, including a rapidly growing volume of customer testimonials and authentic travel stories that provide powerful social proof.
The growth in engagement is remarkable: the number of messages sent between travellers has grown significantly faster than the number of trips booked by social members, demonstrating the deep social utility of our platform. This momentum is reflected in our robust financial health, underscored by a strong balance sheet powered by an asset\-light, cash\-generative business model.
We are not just another Online Travel Agent (OTA); we have created a new category of travel altogether: Social Travel. Our singular focus on helping travellers find people to hang out with is the foundation of our strategy. It has allowed us to build a powerful and defensible market position, which attracts highly valuable customers and shifts more of our business onto our mobile\-native apps.
While our app and social features create a sticky user experience, our true competitive moat stems from the incredibly rich, proprietary data set generated by our social network. As our community grows, so does the value of this data, creating a compounding network effect that is nearly impossible to replicate. This "social flywheel" allows us to understand traveller behaviour, predict needs, and personalise experiences in ways that generalist OTAs cannot match. It is the engine that will power our long\-term, differentiated growth and solidify our position as the sole player in the Social Travel category we created.
At our Capital Markets Day in April 2025, we unveiled our ambitious strategy to build on our success and realise our vision over the next three years. This strategy is organised around five key themes:
- Strengthening the Core OTA Platform: We will continue to enhance our core booking engine, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience for our customers and hostel partners, further solidifying our position as the leading platform for hostel discovery and booking.
- Building 'Pre\-Booking' Social Features: We are developing innovative features like 'Travel Plans', designed to engage users much earlier in their travel journey. These features will accelerate the creation of social profiles and drive app downloads, fuelling our social flywheel before a single bed is booked.
- Leveraging AI for an Enhanced Social Experience: We will embed AI into our pre\- and post\-booking features to deliver unparalleled personalisation and value. This includes AI\-powered recommendations for people to meet, places to go, and things to do, making our social network an indispensable travel companion.
- Expanding our Addressable Market: We will expand our reach and product portfolio through targeted partnerships and M\&A. This will allow us to cater to a broader segment of the youth travel market and integrate new, complementary services into our social travel ecosystem.
- Building New Revenue Streams: Our social network is more than an engagement tool; it is a new platform for monetisation. We will develop new revenue streams directly from our social features, creating value for our users and our business in ways that traditional OTAs cannot.
At Hostelworld, our culture is a direct reflection of our customers: adventurous, curious, and social. We have a shared love of travel that fuels our work and connects us on a deeper level. It’s a fast\-paced environment that blends the agility and "scrappy" resourcefulness of a start\-up with the experience and ambition of a global, publicly listed company.
We are a team of pragmatic optimists who are data\-obsessed and results\-driven. We value a ‘test and learn’ mindset, encouraging experimentation and empowering our teams to take calculated risks. We believe in doing the right thing—for our customers, our partners, and each other. We foster a supportive and collaborative atmosphere where diverse perspectives are celebrated, and where every team member has the opportunity to make a significant impact on our journey. We embrace the journey, not just the destination, and we seek leaders who will thrive in a dynamic environment and inspire their teams to do the same.
LOCATION
------------
This role is based in Portugal. We have an office hub in Porto available for those who prefer a hybrid model where you can spend time with colleagues in\-person. You will need to be able to commute to our office hub as required from time to time.
WHO YOU'LL WORK WITH
-------------------------------
This role sits as a key member of the Marketing Leadership Team, contributing to overall marketing strategy and representing social, creator, and community at a senior level. The Head of Social Media \& Influencers will lead and develop a team of direct reports across social, content, and creator disciplines, alongside managing agency and freelance partners.
This role establishes social as a core growth engine for Hostelworld — moving away from fragmented, platform\-level execution to a fully integrated, strategic approach across content, creators, and community.
- Drives integrated social strategy: Moves from siloed platform activity to a cohesive, end\-to\-end social approach aligned to brand and demand generation
- Builds scalable capability: Develops a structured creator, community and content ecosystem that can scale reach, engagement and impact globally
- Closes a critical capability gap: Addresses the current lack of senior social and creator expertise, ensuring stronger strategic direction, consistency and performance across channels
WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS
Hostelworld is the world's \#1 hostel booking platform — and social media is not a support channel for this brand. It is the growth engine. We exist at the intersection of travel, youth culture, and human connection, and our audience is as social\-native as any consumer brand in the world.
We’re hiring a Head of Social Media to turn social into a true growth engine for Hostelworld — leading strategy, execution, and commercial outcomes across organic, creator, and community. This is a senior leadership role with end\-to\-end ownership of our social and creator ecosystem, responsible for turning cultural relevance into real demand.
This is not a role for someone managing content calendars and reporting on impressions. It’s for someone who understands how attention turns into action — who thinks in ecosystems, not channels, and can connect a TikTok trend to an app download, a Social Pass, and ultimately a booking.
Social is the primary battleground for the next generation of travellers. Hostelworld's audience — 18–35, solo travellers, culturally curious — discovers, trusts, and books through social channels more than any other medium. The opportunity: position Hostelworld not as a brand in the feed, but as the platform that backpacker culture orbits around.
We have strong foundations. We have proven creator relationships. We have a product differentiator — the Social Pass — that is genuinely social\-native. What we need now is the strategic leadership to connect all of it into a demand generation machine: Content Community Awareness App Download Booking.
This hire will define how Hostelworld competes for the next five years.
In the first 12 months, we expect the Head of Social to:
- Define and implement a social measurement framework — connecting platform metrics to app downloads, Social Pass conversion, and booking influence
- Deliver a step\-change in content quality and cultural relevance — measurable through engagement rate, share rate, and earned media value
- Build or significantly evolve the creator programme — with documented attribution from creator activity to commercial outcomes
- Grow the Hostelworld social audience with intent — reaching 18–35 solo travellers at the top of their booking consideration journey
- Establish social as a primary driver of app download growth
- Build a high\-performing team — clear roles, strong capability development, low attrition
- Produce board\-ready social investment cases — that secure further resource allocation based on proven returns
--------------------
1\. Social Media Strategy \& Platform Ownership
- Own the global social media strategy across all platforms — with full accountability for connecting social activity to commercial outcomes (app downloads, Social Pass acquisition, bookings).
- Define the platform architecture — where Hostelworld plays, how it shows up, and what winning looks like on each
- TikTok: Cultural velocity, creator amplification, trend\-led and brand\-led content
- Instagram (Reels, Stories, Feed): Community nurturing, conversion, UGC integration
- YouTube \& Shorts: Long\-form travel storytelling, destination content, creator series
- Emerging platforms: Evaluate and place strategic bets on BeReal, Lemon8, and what comes next
- Set channel\-level KPIs that ladder to commercial metrics — not just reach and engagement
- Build and govern the
Este anúncio é de indeed. Ver anúncio original ↗