If you’ve been following my blog posts over the past couple of weeks, then at this point I’m only preaching to the choir: social media has absolutely changed the way today’s businesses are able to engage with the customers. I’ll save you another spiel on why businesses should be using social media in their marketing strategies , but I would like to just briefly reiterate that by using it, you are opening the door to two-way communication with your audience, turning the marketing game into a multiplayer experience that is all about thoughtful collaboration and active engagement.
This brings us to this week’s topic: crowdsourcing.
Let’s start with a quote from Medical Marketing and Media’s article “Social Media Mindset“:
“Social media as an approach is more important than the actual platform,” says Vertex’s Schwen Gwee. “The approach you take, your mindset, should have social media values attached—it’s about establishing trust, bringing value to your customer, empowering them, and then making sure that you’re listening to them. What you’re doing is no longer about selling messages. It’s about creating value.”
Social media has begun to change the relationship between companies and their audiences. The two-way communication is bringing the two entities closer together from heightened interaction, feedback and engagement. Because of this, we see many companies today starting to incorporate the use of crowdsourcing across the platforms into their marketing strategies. As this study so eloquently defines it, crowdsourcing is based on the idea that knowledge is most accurate when it consists of input from a distributed population. In colloquial terms, it means that business are looking for feedback from any member of the common society rather than restricting it to employees or professionals. When businesses start actively seeking the input from their customers and followers, they inadvertently begin to transform them into advocates for their brand; the increase in engagement begins to make customers feel as if they have a personal stake in the issue.
So how do businesses get their customers talking? Here are three foolproof crowdsourcing approaches to incorporate across all of your social media platforms:
#1: Ask for feedback… and use it.
It’s become somewhat of a nicety or protocol for companies to claim they welcome feedback from their customers. Of course, no reputable company is going to refuse it. But what you don’t see quite as often are the companies who actually follow-up and do something with the feedback they’ve received.
Social media platforms are great for asking open-ended questions that could easily point a business strategy in the right direction. Think of it as a virtual focus group. Of course, there will always be some off-the wall comments in the mix (a downside to crowdsourcing), but forums such as these are a great opportunity to discover trends in your audience. Once you find the trends, take them and build upon on them.
I have a great example for one company who did just this: Starbucks. “My Starbucks Idea” is a blog platform where consumers are able to submit their suggestions for the company with ideas ranging from new products, customer experience to even involvement. Readers can vote for the ideas they like best, and the most popular suggestions are highlighted and reviewed. Remember how the second part to this idea is to actually use the feedback given? Starbucks also developed an “Ideas in Action” blog that is strictly designed to update users about the status of changes suggested. Kudos Starbucks!
#2: Have some fun with contests and giveaways.
People are motivated by incentive. Strategic communication professionals should frame an issue in a way that shows their audiences WHY they should care about it and WHY they should take action. In other words, frame the issue to show the audience how the issue is pertinent to them.
You know a great way to make something pertinent to your audience? Competition. We’ve all seen those “Like, Share, Comment” contests across our social media feeds, and for a good reason – it’s because it works. People love winning, and they love it even more when prizes are involved. It’s the perfect recipe for engagement. People also love to brag about winning, so it’s also a great way to get them talking about your company. After all, turning your participants into promoters is the main goal in hosting a crowdsourcing campaign to begin with.
Social media platforms are the ideal place to host these contests too. It’s free and easy as entry can be done with a few clicks of a button and is a win-win for both company and consumer; consumers have the opportunity to win a product and companies are able to get some free promotion.
For example, Quaker is in the middle of a crowdsourcing campiagn across their social media where users can submit their best recipes using Quaker oatmeal as the basis and only 4 other ingredients and other consumers can vote on their favorites. The winners will win large cash prizes and Quaker will market the new flavors from the winners this October.
#3: The classic survey will never fail you.
In general, people love talking about their opinion – especially when someone asks for it. It’s a good feeling when someone asks you to share their ideas and feelings because it makes you feel like what you’re saying matters and is important. A survey does just this – it’s a quick, easy way to connect with your customers. It makes them feel like their ideas, thoughts and feedback are being heard and appreciated. Surveys have been around for decades, so if your inclination is to write it off as old, outdated or annoying, think again. Surveys are the OG of crowdsourcing, and now that social media has become such as prominent channel in today’s communication strategies, surveys are able to reach audience sizes larger than ever before.
Bouncing back to the quote I cited at the beginning of this post, today’s approach to social media is about empowering your customers and creating value. Think about the three approaches we just talked about. When customer participation increases and they begin to feel like their input matters, isn’t this the intersection of where these things begin to happen? There are many benefits for companies to reap from crowdsourcing across your social media platforms as it is able to provide the tools and access for customers to be involved with companies on a much deeper level than ever before.
NATION: COMMUNICATION 
I really enjoyed your content on crowdsourcing. One of my favorite things about this course is the fact that we are able to really delve into one of the best resources out there; other professionals. I’m trying to build a social media campaign for the store I work in and your blog has given me some great insight on the some of the steps I need to take. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said there are three issues to tackle. I think the most important issue that should be tackled is your first point which is to ask for feed back AND actually use it. To build quality relationships with your customers you have to maintain a genuine image. If you were to ask your customers for feedback and then not apply it; it would seem like you were wasting the time of your customers and not taking their suggestions seriously. I also really think that the contests and active interaction between business and consumer is a great way to bridge the gaps and create meaningful relationships. Great post I very much enjoyed it!
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