Page 355 - Social Media Marketing

time then (I) would not have shared it with you.” Beyond the polar “share/don’t share” 333
as a surrogate for curation, more finely grained ratings and reviews, testimonials and
other forms of direct, overt curation provide participants in social business applica- ■ ╇ S ocial A pplications D rive E ngagement
tions with a direct pathway to collaboration. Providing the ability for customers and
stakeholders to publicly comment and share opinions is essential in drawing people
into your social applications and thereby moving participants ultimately toward collab-
orative involvement in your business or organization.

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing—turning to the Social Web and its participants en masse for input to
specific challenges or needs—is a social activity that directly drives collaboration: Like
ideation, covered separately in the next section, crowdsourcing not only makes “every-
one a participant” but does so in a way that provides public credit for this participa-
tion. In doing so, crowdsourcing encourages future participation and build “stickiness”
with regard to that social application.

That crowdsourcing applications have the ability to grow and develop an audi-
ence over time is a significant plus: Crowdsourcing applications can be used as a part
of a larger social business program to not only pull participants in, but also to keep
them involved over the longer term. This is especially helpful when your objectives
include both the need to solve a problem or challenge that is suitable for crowdsourcing
and also to simultaneously build and sustain a community or similar social structure in
the context of your business.

In business applications, crowdsourcing often takes the basic form of pub-
licly asking for ideas or suggestions against a specific business objective. Building
on consumption and curation, crowdsourcing is a viable method for accomplishing
specific types of tasks that appropriately involve your customers or stakeholders. The
development of confidential or proprietary processes, for example, is clearly an inter-
nal matter, so in these cases consider an internal crowdsourcing application: Dell’s
“EmployeeStorm,” or Ford’s use of the Covisint ideation and collaboration platform
across its suppliers network are solid examples.

What is suitable for crowdsourcing? Designing a logo, supporting a cause,
providing answers to a question, and similar challenges where a diversity of ideas or
talents contributing to the solution are all possibilities. Building on a wiki—a col-
laborative document framework that is itself an example of crowdsourcing—Anjali
Ramachandran has compiled a list (see sidebar) of business-related crowdsourcing
examples. Robert Scoble offers a similar list: Search the Web for “crowdsourcing
examples”—and you’ll find plenty more, ranging from design challenges to lawn
mÂ