I agree with your feedback that discussing the different suggestions of how to implement the status-increasing elements to specific marketing strategies in greater detail would have made the post more practical.
As for your thoughts on whether EA marketing strategies need improvement—I think EA’s lack of consistent viral success is not so random, I think it’s at least partly the result of abstaining from using some of the marketing strategies that have been considered belonging more to the “dark arts” category Halffull mentions. I agree with Halffull here that perhaps EA is being too cautious when trying to not appear negative, so that it might miss out on some good opportunities to appear positive, e.g. via mass media.
The caution of using mass media, for example, seems to stem from EA’s experience where the idea of Earning to Give became simplified and distorted after several articles (e.g. in Washington Post and DailyMail) were written about it. I’m not sure we should draw a conclusion of abstaining from a highly influential channel after one or few bad experience(s). Perhaps mass media was not the perfect channel for spreading the idea of Earning to Give, but it doesn’t mean it applies to all EA ideas alike. Secondly, even though I don’t think we should be spreading inaccurate ideas of EA, I do wonder what the impact of Earning to Give going to mass media really was—perhaps it sparked interest in people who would have otherwise not heard of Effective Altruism. Perhaps this interest led them to 80,000 hours of GiveWell, which gave them a more precise overview of the idea.
I agree with your feedback that discussing the different suggestions of how to implement the status-increasing elements to specific marketing strategies in greater detail would have made the post more practical.
As for your thoughts on whether EA marketing strategies need improvement—I think EA’s lack of consistent viral success is not so random, I think it’s at least partly the result of abstaining from using some of the marketing strategies that have been considered belonging more to the “dark arts” category Halffull mentions. I agree with Halffull here that perhaps EA is being too cautious when trying to not appear negative, so that it might miss out on some good opportunities to appear positive, e.g. via mass media.
The caution of using mass media, for example, seems to stem from EA’s experience where the idea of Earning to Give became simplified and distorted after several articles (e.g. in Washington Post and DailyMail) were written about it. I’m not sure we should draw a conclusion of abstaining from a highly influential channel after one or few bad experience(s). Perhaps mass media was not the perfect channel for spreading the idea of Earning to Give, but it doesn’t mean it applies to all EA ideas alike. Secondly, even though I don’t think we should be spreading inaccurate ideas of EA, I do wonder what the impact of Earning to Give going to mass media really was—perhaps it sparked interest in people who would have otherwise not heard of Effective Altruism. Perhaps this interest led them to 80,000 hours of GiveWell, which gave them a more precise overview of the idea.