Final Presentation - AirBnB

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Making friend with crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing - The power of social media marketing

Crowdsourcing has become one of the most effective ways of strengthening the connection between customers and businesses/brands. Your customers and prospects have tons of valuable ideas that can help your brand for the future, and social media is the perfect platform to tap your customers and prospects for insights on everything – from products concepts, campaigns, advertising and so on.

In the chapter 9 of Groundswell, there is a simple explanation of crowdsourcing - asking the groundswell to provide you with ideas. Here are ways you can  through the platform of social media crowdsourcing your products.

Asking your customers for ideas

Lego has created a website, “Lego ideas” which is mainly for their fans who want to contribute product ideas. This is how it works – users need to submit their idea, and they have a limit of 365 days wherein they need to collect 10,000 votes from people. Once your product has garnered the essential amount of votes, it goes to the next step where the official Lego review board decides, if they want to replicate the product idea or not. Their users even share the idea’s they have created on social media , so to increase more awareness and so they can pledge for more votes.

The Lego for Sherlock was created by a certain fan it got the 10,000 votes but was not approved by the board. Similarly they have a lot of ideas in pipeline from where they decide. This website is a brilliant way for Lego to find many such innovative ideas from its own customers, and great way to get a firsthand look at their customer’s preferences.

Make humility and creativity coexist in all kinds of business

As mentioned in the Groundswell, this is a way to avoid wasting of talent. Companies need to listen to and act customers suggestions. That's what accelerates innovation - starting a conversation with your customers and using your skill to understand and exploit their knowledge.

Lay’s has been hosting contests to engage the public by creating new chip flavor ideas. And the Lay’s “Do Us a Flavor” contest is one of the most successful new product crowdsourcing campaigns. Participants can access the contest through Facebook or their contest landing page. Lay’s makes it easy to enter. Participants simply choose a name, give three ingredients and then tweet about their entry. An update is automatically posted to participants’ Facebook timelines, which spreads the reach of the contest and potentially gains more crowd input.

Lay's did more than just asked for feedback and new flavor, they show their customers on Facebook that they are ready to act and improve their products. So work on both fronts in your company - master up the humility to listen and tap into the skill to take what you've heard and make improvements. You’ll discover how crowdsourcing your products through contests on social media will help you deepen customer involvement and increase loyalty.