How to use Social Media for information crowdsourcing?

‘Generation Rockstar’ vs ‘Generation Expressive’

Crowdsourcing can be defined as; distributed problem-solving and production to a group of people however, unlike outsourcing there is no payment exchange.

Social Media on the other hand; allows for the creation and exchange of user-generated content throughout the web.

The ideological differences of the two forms of user-generated content is perhaps the core differences in online consumer behavior and the manner in which consumers interact with businesses and products when asked to.

Introducing 1) ‘Generation Rock Star’, those people who contribute and share marketing and business ideas and thoughts to a business free of charge with the full understanding and desire to change the way the business functions i.e. Generating ideas for a Product design launch and; 2) ‘Generation Expressive’ those people who have a need to share for the sake of sharing i.e Facebook fan page “Likes” or responsive opinion comments.

Below are 6 tips for marketers on how to use Social Media for crowdsourcing and mash the two?

• Social Media is about building a community, if you are purely trying to harvest information/ideas/thoughts about your business/products from your Social Media community you potentially run the risk of losing them. Instead of making your Fanpage purely a crowdsourcing tool rather link a Crowdsourcing tool to it. For example evly products

• When executing a Crowdsourcing campaign, determine your objectives? For instance, what information are you trying to find out, product packaging ideas? Product launch ideas? New Product development designs? What incentives work for your target market? Now you can build your crowsourcing strategy and tool

• Think of your Crowdsourcing strategy as a long term information generating tool on your Social network rather than a short term Social Media campaign or competition.

• Ensure you have viral plugins with your crowdsourcing strategy so that your reach is greater and your information obtained to benefit your business/product is more accurate in relation to the population

• Don’t forget your community. Just because you have a crowdsourcing program running on one of your Facebook page tabs, don’t forget about your WALL, adding value to your community and updating them with events, highlights and striving to continueously entertain them should always be at the core of your social Media strategy.