Looking back: How to apply SNA differently in a small business

Coming from Venezuela I understood from a young age that learning another language was almost mandatory in order to leverage my future in business, no matter which major I was going to choose. I started taking English classes since the age of 10 all the way until I was 15 years old. Soon I understood how beneficial this knowledge would be throughout my entire life. I got my first job as an English teacher in a kinder garden in my hometown, through one of my brother friends.

It was a small kinder garden, which meant seats available for students in the regular school year were limited (less than 15 kids per class). Because of this, the school decided to start a summer camp at the end of each school year to give the opportunity to more kids to learn the basics of English during summer camp.

Here is where SNAs play an important role. Looking back now that I have gone through so many life experiences concerning social networks and how they affect each aspect of your life, I would have done the advertising of the summer camp much differently.

How it was done?

The advertising of the summer camp was done mostly through word-of-mouth, which was very beneficial the first year the summer camp was done. The new kids that attended were mostly family members or friends with the current students in the kinder garden.

The following year the summer camp was done, this word-of-mouth advertising showed not to work anymore since the students from the kinder garden stayed relatively the same, so the family members or friends from the year before already attended and learned English.

How it could have been done.

The most effective way to apply SNAs in this case would be to:

-       Come up with promotions: such as discounts for new students you are willing to attract to the summer camp other than your own kid. (Hult did exactly this in order to attract new students last year. they would offer discounts to already accepted students that would recruit other new students. They basically left part of the advertising job to already accepted students for the 2015 class). The location of the school makes it vulnerable to society influence, which can be very strong in the city.

First, the school board should have come with a survey that helped them identify the most influential families within their network of parents, in order to narrow the amount of promotions they would be willing to give out. Listing the name of the parents of current students and applying the proper survey that would identify some parents as the most influential ones according to their connections inside and outside the school.

Second, approach those parents and discuss the promotion package available in exchange for them spreading the voice about the summer camp among their connections.

Again, the use of word-of-mouth advertising will be used in this case but the chances of the information getting to truly potential students families is higher due to the narrowing reached by the survey. Keep in mind that we are not trying to reach people from within current students families only this time, but also people on their social environment.

Data such as the amount of new students from last school year to this year, family members and friends who already attended summer camp last year, which families are highly involved in social events (size social connections), extracurricular activities of current students, clubs that families belong to, should be identified through the survey questions in order to give the school board a better sense of who the influencers are and how they could use them to effectively advertise the second term of the summer camp.

That saying “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it”, cannot be applied anymore for businesses these days due to the highly changing society we live in, so businesses, no matter which area, have to constantly reinvent themselves, and SNAs are a great starting point to do so.