Networks Analysis for Spread of Innovations: StartUps?
As we learned more about the effects of social networks in spreading innovations, social media sites, and technologies, I could not stop thinking about how useful this information could be in the startup world. Recently, while participating in the Cornell NYC Hackathon for FinTech in Latin America, full of innovation and hopes for a startup to go viral, I realized how without having had taken this Networks class, I would not have understood how to go about approaching the topic of implementation of my social media site. I then quickly realized that many of my opponents did not have this information, so I became curious to see if this topic is being talked about enough online. Though I never truly found what I aimed to find: an article aimed to inform people about how to use social network analysis to catalyze the spread of an innovation, but I did end up finding an article about how weak ties and word of mouth for spreading innovations.
This article addressed how underestimated weak ties are, though they were never referred to in the articles as weak ties. It is important for startup and the entrepreneur world to understand how to push out new technologies and take advantage of the current data about how to infiltrate groups and spread the innovation most efficiently. One interesting thing that they pointed out on several occasions was marketing to the people who moved easily between groups and could spread the information to many who were not necessarily connected with each other, and how many marketers are not aware of this strategy.
There is not enough information out there, geared towards those who we want to have it, the innovators who could be spreading new innovations if they knew how to market it well. The ways of doing so range from identifying and taking advantage of influential ties, specifically weak ones, but also learning how to spread technologies, and when to know if it is worth your time to pursue putting something on the market, and when it is not.
https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/why-we-share-opinions-and-word-of-mouth-marketing