Cool Things About Involving High School Students

I have had a revelation with some of the community activities that I've been doing in the past few months that I don't know if it's really been figured out yet by a lot of the organizers in the community I'm in.

High Schoolers are the BEST people to get involved in your activity. Why?
Here's a quick run down:

1. They're passionate about it. There's not the cynicism I find with other adults about whatever the event is, these kids throw themselves into it 100% and completely believe it will be successful.

2. Because they are excited, they bring their friends, who in turn get excited. And so on...

3. They are masters of social networking. Do you want to advertise your event? Get a 16 year old who is on Facebook/Myspace/Twitter excited about it and s/he will update the status thing every 5 minutes with something new and exciting about your event/activity. Pretty soon everyone knows about it.

4. Text messaging. See #3, only with text messages.

5. When the teen is begging to go to this event, then they tell their parents... and thus the adults in the community find out about it.


It's an easy way to get word out about your activity in the community you're in. Social networking has made the world a much smaller pace where news can travel in an instant... and these kids are on top of it. The trick is involving a few of them in the production side of it- not only does it give them some responsibility but they're REALLY proud of it when it's over. So, moral of the story: to do grass roots marketing involve your local teenagers!