Overview:
The Koch Associate Program (KAP) is a career accelerator for early to mid-career professionals with a drive to tackle our country’s most pressing challenges in more effective, principled ways. KAP equips associates with the tools, mindsets, and community to succeed as social entrepreneurs—individuals excited to find new and better ways to break barriers and eliminate injustice. Associates spend one day each week engaging in experiential learning with Stand Together Fellowships and work at one of our many partner organizations the rest of the week. Our curriculum is designed to supercharge your development and equip you for long-term success as you seek to have an impact on the problems that prevent people from realizing their potential.
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University seeks a Social and Digital Marketing Associate to help the MRU team build a new brand: Econ Nerds. Launching by summer 2025, Econ Nerds will be a video and podcasting platform where experts from the Mercatus Center and beyond can share economic insights with a mass audience. We plan to release new content every week. Unlike MRU’s traditional focus on textbook “Econ 101,” Econ Nerds content will range farther afield, exploring whatever topics appeal to our contributors and viewers. (To give a sense of this: early test videos have covered the impact of containerization on world trade, the irrational "stonk" market, and the pricing strategy lessons of OnlyFans.)
We expect social media to be the key driver of Econ Nerds’ audience–and our Social and Digital Marketing Associate will be the key player in building the brand’s social presence. Working with a small team (primarily MRU’s marketing director, our content creators, and a designer), the Associate will provide the social media expertise (and the legwork!) necessary to build a large, engaged audience for Econ Nerds–starting from a blank page. Ideally the brand’s social presence will not merely promote the videos and podcasts, but rather provide popular content in its own right.
Role Responsibilities
- Create a social media presence from scratch for the new Econ Nerds brand
- Determine the optimal mix of social platforms
- Define a voice and personality for the brand
- Establish schedules and processes for posting
- Post/promote videos and podcasts created by the Econ Nerds team
- Create original posts to drive engagement and build the audience
- Interact with our social audience
- Collaborate with designers to create any required art
- Create social-friendly clips from videos
- Support and upgrade the existing MRU social media presence
- Create posts to promote new MRU content (videos, interactives, teacher training)
- Evaluate options to improve the MRU social strategy
- Report on each brand’s social performance using social platforms’ native analytics or other tools
- Apply a test-and-learn approach to improve performance over time
- Manage Econ Nerds and MRU advertising on social and other platforms
