I started Good Impressions, which helps effective nonprofits and foundations scale using paid ads and SEO.
For me, the takeaway is that the actual cost of generating interest in EA (Brian's $4 cost per graduated EA fellow from below) is significantly below our little group's estimates of what an engaged EA is worth ($3K -$30K as noted above).
I think everyone would agree an engaged EA is worth more than $4.
If someone is reading this who would know how to scale FB ads for EA university fellowships that seems like an extremely high impact thing to do.
I have domain expertise in digital marketing and would love to help EA organizations. I'm not qualified to weigh in on the questions of messaging or how far-reaching the campaign should be, but once those things are figured out I can tell you the best way to use YouTube and Google Search to accomplish your goals.
Thanks so much for your thoughts Robert!
"What would you think of the concern that these types of ads would be a "low fidelity" way of spreading EA that could risk misinforming people about EA? I think from my experience community building, it's really useful to be able to describe and discuss EA ideas in detail, and that there are risks to giving someone an incorrect view of EA. These risks include someone being critical of what they believe EA is, and spreading this critique, as well as discouraging them from getting involved when they may have done so at a later time. The risk is probably lower if someone clicks on a short ad that takes them to say effectivealtruism.com where the various ideas are carefully explained and introduced. But someone who only saw the ads and didn't click could end up with an incorrect view of EA."
-> Great points! A couple thoughts.
"I would be interested to see discussion about what would and wouldn't make a good online ad for EA e.g. how to intrigue people without being inaccurate or over-sensationalizing parts of EA. "
-> I agree! I'm excited to start testing
"I know lots of university EA groups make use of Facebook advertising and some have found this useful to promote events. I don't know whether Google/Youtube ads allow targeting at the level of students of a specific university?"
-> Yep! We could only target 18-24 year-olds within Xkm of the university. Part of the reason I expect this would be beneficial above and beyond the FB ads is (1) it would be video + sound vs just an image which I think is standard for FB and (2) it would be incredibly cheap (you could reach ~1,000 students for $10). I would be very interested in helping interested university groups with this.
Just a quick thank you to the FTX team for working so hard at such a difficult task!