I have seen the future and it works. – Lincoln Steffens, Journalist (b.1866, d.1936)
Content crowdsourcing is so much more than one of those “new, next, now” marketing buzz phrases. It is a pivotal game changer for brands, messaging and the bottom line. Named one of the top trends for 2013, content crowdsourcing is, in our opinion, word-of-mouth on steroids. It invites your targeted audience to build your conversation via the submission of user-generated content and sharing it with their respective networks of friends, followers and fans. If you have any reluctance or resistance to real-time engagement, the new normal of the social universe, just crown your competitors now for their ability to outwit, outplay and outlast.
For some companies, particularly those involved in advocacy, activism and fundraising, the concept of crowdsourcing should be fairly familiar. It has become an effective strategy of getting crowds of online users involved, providing feedback and enhancing a brand’s social footprint. For many, including several LGK clients, crowdsourcing takes traditional objectives to new levels, be those objectives petition drives via platforms such as Change.org, surveys via platforms such as Zoomerang, which merged with SurveyMonkey, or charitable campaigns via platforms such as Crowdrise. In this new age of marketing efficiency and effectiveness, crowdsourcing plays an extremely important role in every plan, strategy or tactic.
Is content crowdsourcing easier said than done? Yes! It is a practice that requires thinking, planning, executing and evaluating differently. For as much as content crowdsourcing can go quite right in building user-generated content, brand evangelists and brand values (see the Pepsi campaign promos for the Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show at the end of this post), it can go way left in attracting negative comments, brand bashers and brand shortcomings. Last year, the fast food giant McDonald’s launched #MeettheFarmers, a hash tag campaign designed to shape a positive conversation about the chain’s food suppliers, but then changed the hash tag to #McDstories to broaden the discourse. And boy, did it ever – to the point of being hijacked by those with a Mickey D ax to grind.
Despite the obvious manpower and cost efficiencies of content crowdsourcing, it is not for the faint of heart or those unwilling to relinquish some control (or as we like to say, power to the people) and unable to monitor, moderate and interact inside the forum of online discourse. To effectively grow and engage your social networks, grasp of the realities of real time engagement and implement conversation drivers that focus, guide and set parameters for user-generated content. Crowdsourcing is the future of content marketing. It is happening now and it is here to stay.
https://youtu.be/DqHflxuEvlk