Do you have any impressions about the role of social media in raising EA awareness among teens?
Or any thoughts about the potential of using the main social media platforms that teens tend to use (eg TikTok, Intagram, Snapchat, and YouTube shorts), as distinct from those that older adults tend to use (eg Twitter/X, Facebook).
On the one hand, we can stereotype TikTok users as shallow, superficial, unlikely to be EA material, etc; on the other hand, I can imagine a lot of key EA ideas could actually be conveyed very quickly and clearly in TikTok or YouTube short videos.
Hi Geoffrey! I did try a campaign with paid Meta ads for History to shape history, mostly on Instagram, and it went really quite poorly. But (1) this was partly due to technical issues with my account, and (2) I know that Non-Trivial and Atlas have had much more success with paid ads. (My suspicion is that having a financial incentive for programme participation is a big multiplier on the effectiveness of paid ad campaigns, at least for this age group.)
It sounds like you’re asking more about broad outreach rather targeted promotion of specific programmes. I could share miscellaneous thoughts on this, but I don’t think I really have any particular insight or evidence on this based on the work I’ve done.
Jamie—yes, I was thinking mostly about general outreach and EA education, rather than paid ads. I could imagine a series of short videos for TikTok explaining some basic EA concepts and insights, for example.
Jamie—thanks for sharing these helpful data.
Do you have any impressions about the role of social media in raising EA awareness among teens?
Or any thoughts about the potential of using the main social media platforms that teens tend to use (eg TikTok, Intagram, Snapchat, and YouTube shorts), as distinct from those that older adults tend to use (eg Twitter/X, Facebook).
On the one hand, we can stereotype TikTok users as shallow, superficial, unlikely to be EA material, etc; on the other hand, I can imagine a lot of key EA ideas could actually be conveyed very quickly and clearly in TikTok or YouTube short videos.
Hi Geoffrey! I did try a campaign with paid Meta ads for History to shape history, mostly on Instagram, and it went really quite poorly. But (1) this was partly due to technical issues with my account, and (2) I know that Non-Trivial and Atlas have had much more success with paid ads. (My suspicion is that having a financial incentive for programme participation is a big multiplier on the effectiveness of paid ad campaigns, at least for this age group.)
It sounds like you’re asking more about broad outreach rather targeted promotion of specific programmes. I could share miscellaneous thoughts on this, but I don’t think I really have any particular insight or evidence on this based on the work I’ve done.
Jamie—yes, I was thinking mostly about general outreach and EA education, rather than paid ads. I could imagine a series of short videos for TikTok explaining some basic EA concepts and insights, for example.