1. Social Currency

"People like to make a good impression, so we need to make our products a way to achieve that." (Berger, 59)

The idea of social currency has three parts to it, making it the most complex principle in the book. It is also, I think the hardest to wrap my head around applying. I can see clearly the examples he presents and how they use the ideas of inner remarkability, game mechanics and scarcity, but I had more of a challenge coming up with ways to adapt these principles to my company's situation.

How I might use these concepts at Pegasus Dance Studios:

Inner Remarkability -

Example of a Facebook Post to encourage parents to share

This idea talked about the fact that people liked to share things they found interesting, exciting or remarkable in some way. This word of mouth is created by people's need to share something that makes them look interesting or exciting or smart. At Pegasus Dance Studios we have the advantage of our primary client being parents and what do parents love to do more than share their children's accomplishments? My take away action would be to included more ways we can celebrate children individually. Can we make a big deal of their recital costumes, give them attendance awards, perfect bun awards, publicly recognize children who participate in ballet exams or performances so parents have the ability to share that both on social media and verbally with their friends.


Game Mechanics -

The idea of making a game out of your business was more challenging to me. I see clearly how airmiles or points cards work, but how do you apply that to a dance school? This is easier done from the perspective of the kids. We can do sticker charts, for example, in classes for various things such as attendance, coming in proper uniform, etc, but the we have found that kids are not as reliable a source of word of mouth as the parents. An idea we have tossed around at Pegasus is rewarding the parents. For example, if a dancer has perfect attendance, why not give the parent a gift. After all, up to a certain age, it is the parents who are getting the kids to class on time. So we might try giving all the parents with perfect attendance for a term a coffee gift card, or a gas gift card.

Scarcity -

This one is actually very easy. Having full classes with students on the waiting list is ideal. Obviously, the fear is always that if we can never add the waitlist person to the class they will simply find another dance school. So, we need to walk a tightrope here. Having full classes certainly makes us look like we are doing a good job (and plays into the imitation factors from a later concept), but we also need to be able to deliver at some point. Unlike other businesses, our students register for the entire school year, so unless a student drops a class, we will not be able to take a waitlisted student in. One solution would be to start with fewer classes on the schedule and add a class if we get enough students on the waitlist.

Social Currency Pinterest Board