Crowdsourcing--Pleasant Or Painful for Your Company?
Creating a brand that truly involves its customers is a powerful thing--people can start feeling that "your" product is really "their" product. One way to involve consumers is by using a technique called crowdsourcing, which basically means that you use the public as a source of inspiration for design, marketing, trouble-shooting, etc.
One great illustration of crowdsourcing is Jones Soda's public photo entry. Anyone can submit a photograph to vie for a chance to be printed on the soda bottle labels and receive their 15 minutes of fame. It's a pleasant way for consumers to interact with the brand and for Jones Soda to get free designs for their product.
However, there's sometimes a painful side to crowdsourcing--just go to YouTube and search "Chevy Tahoe commercial parody" for a long list of venomous consumer-created videos entered into the 2006 Chevy Tahoe SUV campaign.
There will always be positive and negative feedback towards any company, but you can create a venue more conducive to building positive awareness that fits the small or local business model. Some ideas include:
1. Elementary school art contest -- let youngsters design a temporary logo for your company, based on the original, to be posted on your website or in-store flyers and business cards for a month
2. Depending on your industry, hold a contest online where visitors can submit design ideas and win a cash prize
3. Host a public party at your physical location (if you have one) where partygoers vote on what nonprofit should receive product donations from your company
4. Create a forum in your website where people can submit questions and answer others' queries for help about your product
There are more than enough ideas to go around, and if you check online you might find even more creative ways to utilize the public as a means of marketing that helps you and engages them. The best way to crowdsource is to provide an incentive and really publicize your activity--this synergy can really provide pleasant results to your brand.
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