OFI 1327: The Power Of Social Media & Social Proof | FFA SAE Edition | Madi Springer | Franklin High School FFA

There is no question that if you make delicious cookies and cupcakes that you have the ingredients for a business. Who can deny treats like that? However, how does anyone ever find out that you have the ability to make these items and sell them? Social media is one really capable platform to make this happen.

This is exactly what took place in the formation of Madi Springer’s business, Madi’s Cookies & Cupcakes. Madi has been baking for years, and right around the beginning of her freshman year of high school she made some decorative cookies for her mom, and her mom promptly bragged about them on her Facebook page. this led to another mom in their small community of Franklin, Illinois to contact Madi and see if she could bake four dozen pumpkin themed cookies for the high school cross country team.

Madi agreed and made the cookies. Her first ever customer was very pleased and bragged about her on social media, and the orders started rolling in. Today, just 1.5 years later, Madi is fulfilling 3-4 orders per week and turning away customers. She is planning on becoming more efficient, improving her equipment and expanding her business to cakes as well as cookies and cupcakes.

This is not the first time that I have heard of a business beginning after a parent shares what their daughter or son are capable of on social media. Of course, it is a parent’s job to brag about their kids, so people tend to take those posts with a grain of salt. However, when a paying customer who is not related to the burgeoning entrepreneur brags about the product, there is instant credibility in the testimonial. That can really cause a business to launch, and that is what it did in Madi’s case. That “social proof” of a non-family member paying for and loving the product is what is needed to really ramp things up.

FFA LINKS:

SUPERVISED AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE: Madi’s Cookies and Cupcakes

HIGH SCHOOL: Franklin High School, Franklin, Illinois

MASCOT: Vipers

FFA ADVISOR: Brent Nelson

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR MADI SPRINGER:

Click on the picture below to be taken to the Franklin High School’s website:

Madi’s FFA Advisor’s Email Address: bnelson@franklinhigh.com

Franklin High School District Telephone: 217-675-2395

FFA LINKS:

National FFA Organization

Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s)

Support FFA

Donate to FFA – One way that FFA students are able to start small businesses is through an FFA grant of $1,000. In 2014, 141 FFA students received these grants. With your donations, more students can get this head start – pay it forward.

REASONS TO DONATE TO FFA:

Only 2% of Americans grow and raise most of the food and livestock consumed by the other 98% as well as the rest of the world. FFA is providing the needed education, training and resources to Americans that will carry that torch forward and insure that America continues to have inexpensive, quality food.
Rural Communities will rely on entrepreneurship in the future for population growth and job creation. The FFA is a major catalyst to that entrepreneurial growth.
Farmers, ranchers and those working in agriculture give the rest of America incredible amounts of freedom because the search for food is as simple as going to the grocery store:

“The future of American agriculture depends on the involvement and investment in America’s youth, In order to prepare for the population of tomorrow, we need to encourage America’s youth today, and show that careers in agriculture are profitable, rewarding, and vital.”.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue