SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues. Last week’s poll question: Have you ever crowdsourced a problem? Were you happy with the result?
- No, but I’m interested in trying it: 32.72%
- Yes, and I would do it again: 27.78%
- Not sure what crowdsourcing is: 21.60%
- No, and I’m not interested in trying it: 13.58%
- Yes, but I wouldn’t do it again: 4.32%
Crowdsourcing is like the practical uncle of social media: none of the fuzzy nonsense about engagement, just a laser focus on solving a problem. Done well, it can be incredibly satisfying and refreshingly simple. Done poorly, it blow up in your face and leave you wondering why you didn’t just tackle the problem the “hard way” like you always do.
The SmartBrief readers who took our poll and said they’ve tried to crowdsource a problem in the past seem to have had good luck with the process. Almost 28% of all respondents say the results were good enough that they’d try it again, compared with about 4% who were unimpressed.
For the majority of our readers, however, crowdsourcing remains a mystery. Whether you’re seriously considering it or just now finding out about the concept, I can say that crowdsourcing a problem can reap rich, often surprising rewards. But like a lot of aspects of social media, your success or failure really depends on three things:
- The ability to ask detailed questions about the problem you’re trying to solve. What exactly are you trying to accomplish? How will you know when you’ve been successful? How will you track outcomes and modify your process?
- The ability to create awareness of your problem within the right channels. Sometimes you’ll be looking to your die-hard fans to help you solve a problem. Sometimes you want people who’ve never heard of you. Sometimes you want one talented professional. Sometimes you want a crowd of worker bees. Some social networks are better suited to solving some problems than others. Know who you’re trying to reach and how you’ll motivate them to participate.
- The ability to articulate what you need. Vague problem descriptions lead to unsatisfactory results every time. Empower your crowd to help you by explaining the problem in as much detail as you can — along with the criteria you’ll be using to judge successful solutions from unsuccessful ones.
If you’ve crowdsourced a problem before, was the experience positive or negative? If you’re looking into the process, what are you excited and/or worried about?
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I crowdsource only when Google can't provide a good answer (or if something is too specific or difficult to articulate in the search box).
I think this is where social has a distinct advantage over search: you can talk to social like a human, and you can only guess your way through search by trying to think like an algorithm.
For business uses, crowdsourcing seems to be hit or miss. If people are interested in the question, you'll get a flurry of responses, but a lot of times your question only gets crickets.
My recent post 3 Questions to Ask Before Jumping on a Marketing Bandwagon
I've long been a fan of KickStarter and IndieGogo, and I enjoy seeing the projects people are trying to get funded. I've watched other crowdsourcing sites, for logos, web design, and other projects, and seen hit or miss results. But that's the point: you're going to get a lot of offers, and you can select from those you think are worthwhile, while the people offering the work get the visibility.
Nice post Jesse.
Global Dawn's founder and CEO Jonathan Lakin is part of the future of making and selling things. However, there are still some questions that come to mind like "How do we improve crowdsourcing?" and "Where does it lead us?". These are two important two questions, so read Lakin's insights at http://crowdsourcing.org/l/3125.
Global Dawn's founder and CEO Jonathan Lakin is part of the future of making and selling things. However, there are still some questions that come to mind like "How do we improve crowdsourcing?" and "Where does it lead us?". These are two important two questions, so read Lakin's insights at http://crowdsourcing.org/l/3125.
Global Dawn's founder and CEO Jonathan Lakin says crowdsourcing is part of the future of making and selling things. However, there are still some questions that come to mind like "How do we improve crowdsourcing?" and "Where does it lead us?". These are two important two questions, so read Lakin's insights at http://crowdsourcing.org/l/3125.
I work for a menswear retailer and recently used crowdsourcing to answer a style question asked by an online customer. Simply put the question on Twitter and received some very substantive responses. I will definitely try crowdsourcing more often in the future.
I have done a lot of outsourcing…but I have only crowdsourced one time. I must say it was a pretty good experience. I crowdsourced a cover design and while many of the submissions were lackluster the one I chose was quite awesome. I have gotten many positive comments about the cover graphic quality.
My recent post Freelance Contractors – An Internet Marketer’s Best Friend
A really good crowd scource art website is http://murallocator.org . Mural Locator is a very unique website that aims to create a central location for people to research and find information about murals.
My recent post Twin City Surplus Mural