SOCIAL AND DIGITAL MARKETING ASSOCIATE

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

Minimum Qualifications

• College-level (or better) writing skills in American English, with the ability to write engaging, humorous, and pithy social posts
• Expert, active user of multiple social platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram
• 2+ years managing active corporate/brand social media accounts (or a high-profile personal account)
• 2+ years managing digital ads on social or other platforms
• Strong understanding and appreciation of economics, especially the approaches typical on MarginalRevolution.com. (An econ degree is great, but by itself is neither necessary nor sufficient for this role.)
• Demonstrated success in a remote role is strongly preferred

Additional Information:

This position is part of the KOCH Associate Program with Stand Together.  If you are interested, please apply on our career site as well as the website below:

https://jobs.lever.co/standtogether/4833ec07-ce61-4b48-9d5d-a092570b0c8b

EEO Statement: We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Employee Benefits: Salary is competitive and will be commensurate with experience. In addition, Mercatus provides excellent benefits to all individual employees, including full health and dental coverage, flexible spending accounts, long-term disability and life insurance, a 403(b) retirement savings program, parking/travel benefits, and twelve free credits per year at George Mason University.

About the Mercatus Center at George Mason University: For over 40 years, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University has been the world’s premier university source for market-oriented ideas—bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. A university-based research center, Mercatus works to advance knowledge about how markets work to improve our lives by training graduate students, conducting research, and applying sound economics to offer solutions to society’s most pressing problems.