KAP 2025 -2026 - Social and Digital Marketing Associate - Mercatus Center

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 Marginal Revolution University (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.

Remote, but office space at the Mercatus Center in Arlington, VA will be available if desired.

• Create a social media presence from scratch for the new Econ Nerds brand

• Create original posts to drive engagement and build the audience

• 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

• 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

About Stand Together Fellowships 

Learn more about Stand Together Fellowships.

Stand Together Fellowships believes that diversity in experiences, perspectives, knowledge and ideas fuels creativity, broadens knowledge, and helps drive success. Our admissions office treats all program participants and applicants with honesty, dignity, respect and sensitivity. We welcome all qualified applicants regardless of color, race, religion, religious creed, sex, gender or gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, ethnicity, ancestry, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy (including medical needs which may arise from pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), military and veteran status, genetic information, marital or familial status, political affiliation, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state or local laws, regulations or ordinances.