Crowdsourcing Essentials – Summary Checklist

Introduction

✓ Companies turning to the ‘crowd’ has increased ✓ Method of getting ideas/content/solutions/support from a group of people or community ✓ People have been crowdsourcing for centuries ✓ Creativity and innovation can come from anywhere

How Crowdsourcing Benefits Your Business

✓ Now there is daily contact between people and the brands they like ✓ Someone from the outside might have a fresh take ✓ Find out what your market really wants ✓ A powerful form of customer engagement ✓ Customers are doing the work for you

What You Will Learn

✓ How crowdsourcing works ✓ How you can use crowdsourcing to create unique content ✓ Marketing tasks and techniques ✓ The types of design tasks that can be crowdsourced ✓ Some micro tasks can be crowdsourced ✓ The basics of crowdfunding ✓ General tips and best practices ✓ The most common mistakes businesses make ✓ The next steps you need to take

How Crowdsourcing Works

Steps involved include:

✓ Design the job and divide the labor o Decide what needs to be done o Start with the end result and work backwards ✓ Create clear instructions o Tell participants exactly what they need to do o Provide a time limit ✓ Choose or create a platform o Use a readymade platform or create one yourself o This is where participants contribute ideas ✓ Begin the job o Release or publish instructions o Launch ✓ Manage the job o Monitor activity, gather ideas o Answer questions ,listen to feedback and look for problems ✓ Gather data and create final product o If you’re looking for useable results, go through what you have o Figure out what you can use, provide the winner with a reward

Crowdsourcing Content Creation

✓ Allows your audience to create content for you ✓ New ideas and free content ✓ Engage your audience

✓ You can crowdsource: o Written content o Image content o Video content

Content Contests

✓ Ask audience to submit content based on a certain theme ✓ Offer a reward for those chosen ✓ More fun and exciting

Let Your Audience Tell Their Own Stories

✓ Ask them to tell a story they can relate to your brand or product ✓ Also look for stories not directly related ✓ Communicate what the brand is about

Crowdsourcing Comments

✓ Encourage your audience to comment by: o Ask them for ideas or input o Post content that contains questions o Ask follow-up questions to comments o Drawing them out to express different opinions

Questions and Answers

✓ Ask customers to answer questions for you ✓ Pose a question and turn answers into posts ✓ Create longer articles

Create a Wiki

✓ Another way for expert audience to share knowledge ✓ Allow pages to be collaboratively created and edited ✓ Write their own content and edit others

Creative Commons and Stock Images

✓ Pre-created content that is free to use ✓ Images, video or audio files that you can use with proper attribution

Crowdsourcing for Marketing

✓ Ideal way to come up with marketing ideas ✓ Rely on the wisdom of the market ✓ Know and understand your market’s needs, then provide a solution

Market Research

✓ Ask people to share something each week, such as: o Recipes o Activities o Problems ✓ Get insight into what they like and don’t like, and what to offer ✓ Make sure they’re simple assignments ✓ Some can double as content creation too

Product Ideas

✓ Use social media sites and ask people what they want o Ask outright for ideas o Host competitions o Use polls, surveys or user-generated content o Ask customers to vote o Get customers to decide on features ✓ It’s easier for customers to decide between options

Surveys and Polls

✓ Easy to take and get your audience involved

✓ Use social media sites or plugins ✓ Ask for feedback

Crowdsourcing Design

✓ Allow the crowd’s creativity to create your design for you ✓ Any design work can be outsourced o Logos o Business Cards o Print/Online ads o Websites o Packaging o Features o T-shirts o Stationery o Illustrations

Design Competitions

✓ Put a call out for what you need with specifications ✓ Offer a good incentive ✓ Make the final decision

Design Crowdsourcing Websites

➢ 99Designs ➢ DesignCrowd ➢ Design Contest ➢ CrowdSpring ➢ Jade Magnet ➢ Choosa ➢ Threadless ➢ Pop Tent ➢ Genius Rocket ➢ Tongal ➢ CoContest

Crowdsourcing vs. Spec Work

✓ Spec work is done for free by a designer in the hopes of landing a job or using the work in a portfolio ✓ Not crowdsourcing but asking someone to work for free ✓ The benefit of crowdsourcing is the wealth of ideas

Crowdsourcing Microtasks

✓ Ask your audience to visit your site and provide feedback ✓ Small tasks that can easily done by a large number of individuals ✓ Save company time with no investment

✓ A few microtasks include: o Translation o Transcription o Photo Tagging o Data Verification o Testing ✓ Make sure sensitive information is always safe

Crowdsourcing from Your Team

✓ Crowdsourcing is also useful for getting ideas from your team ✓ Get your internal crowd excited at the task at hand ✓ Provide all tools and resources and make it as easy as possible

Crowdfunding

✓ Crowdsourcing for funding ✓ Get small donations from lots of people ✓ Funders are given incentives depending on how much they invest

Types of Crowdfunding

✓ Rewards based o A reward is given to those who pledge money ✓ Peer-to-peer o A simple platform to allow people to lend money to each other ✓ Equity o The funder has a stake in the final project

Tips for Successful Crowdfunding

✓ Create a compelling pitch that speaks to the lender ✓ Research the projects of others ✓ Create promotional content well before it starts to get a buzz going

Crowdsourcing Tips and Best Practices

Promoting Your Crowdsourcing Campaign

✓ Promote across all marketing channels ✓ Get more participants and promote your channels ✓ Time promotion to start before launch

Take Advantage of Social Media Features

✓ Use social media features to create your campaign ✓ Utilize hashtags ✓ People will find you more easily

Make it Easy to Participate

✓ Whatever you ask people to do, make it as easy as possible ✓ Polls are effective for this reason

✓ Consider the effort when you set it up

Offer an Incentive

✓ Find something that doesn’t cost much ✓ Offer a reward for the winner or a series of rewards

Update Your Participants

✓ Keep people updated on how the campaign is going ✓ Share other ideas coming in ✓ Keep people engaged

Make Important Decisions In-House

✓ Make any major decisions using people in-house ✓ You or your marketing team should have final say ✓ Even if you allow people to vote, make the final decision yourself

Crowdsourcing Mistakes to Avoid

Poor Communication

✓ Make sure you effectively convey what you’re trying to do ✓ You might end up with material you can’t use ✓ Some people will naturally misunderstand

Choosing the Right Solution

✓ Ideas aren’t necessarily solutions ✓ Going through everything is time consuming ✓ Make sure you keep in mind the solution you’re looking for

Legal Issues

✓ Various legal issues can arise ✓ There may be questions over who retain intellectual property rights ✓ Get your legal team to make sure everything is ok and state legal issues

Too Much Complexity

✓ Make sure you simplify the task ✓ Crowdsource just once part ✓ Make sure the task is easy, instructions are clear and the platform is easy to use

Confidentiality

✓ You have to reveal certain aspects of your business ✓ Don’t reveal too much information ✓ Always prepare for the worst

Conclusion – Getting Started

You’ve Learned

✓ What crowdsourcing is and how it's useful for businesses ✓ The basic steps every crowdsourcing project must go through ✓ Ideas and tips on crowdsourcing content from your audience ✓ Different areas of your marketing that can be crowdsourced and how to do it ✓ Ways you can crowdsource design tasks ✓ Micro tasks that can be crowdsourced both within your company and from outside ✓ How crowdfunding works and the different types of crowdfunding

you can use for your business ✓ Guidelines and tips for planning and running a successful crowdsourcing project ✓ The mistakes many businesses make when they first start crowdsourcing and how to avoid them