By Deanna Ferrari
In the August 2010 edition of PRSA Tactics, I bookmarked the article, “By popular demand: Crowdsourcing your audience for innovation.” The article did a nice job of defining crowdsourcing, and outlined an effective crowdsourcing campaign: Go Daddy’s “Create Your Own Commercial” contest. While crowdsourcing is a great way to gain insight into what your audience really wants, using this tactic for a smaller, more niche company than Go Daddy may seem challenging. But it is doable – if you listen to the right people and ask the right questions.
Wikipedia defines crowdsourcing as the outsourcing of tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call. In the age of social media, this is now done almost solely through social networks. Some great examples of crowdsourcing have been the Pepsi Refresh Project, where fans can vote for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact, and the Old Spice viral video campaign, where fans generated questions and had the spokesperson answer them live via YouTube, garnering a 107 percent increase in sales.
Most brands, however, are not Old Spice, Pepsi or Go Daddy. They don’t have quite the mega-following or built-in loyalists of these large, consumer companies. But business-to-business companies can effectively crowdsource, if they use their social networks right.
Example 1: Snap-on Tools
Granted, Snap-on is a leading global innovator, manufacturer and marketer of tools, diagnostics, equipment, software and service solutions — for professional users. It’s a large, 90-year-old brand, but it’s also no Pepsi – it’s a little more specific than that. Yet its Facebook page manages to gather hundreds of “likes” and comments. It has more than 64,000 people that like it, and Snap-on does an excellent job of managing its social media presence across other channels as well.
For example, on August 23, 2010 Snap-on posted, “Where did you first learn about Snap-on tools?” 60 people liked the post and 270 comments were generated. Next ad campaign perhaps? Or maybe, just an indication of how to better educate people about Snap-on. Crowdsource accomplished.
Example 2: Pharmacy Development Services
Pharmacy Development Services (PDS) has a smaller, more niche following than Snap-on Tools but still successfully crowdsources. According to its Facebook page, PDS is the hands-on business tool that is transforming independent pharmacies into customer-focused profit centers. The page has more than 300 likes. On August 19, 2010, PDS posted, “We’ve put together an incredible video featuring the Pharmacy Shop Local program – what do you think? http://ow.ly/2s1YP.” This post resulted in five likes and seven comments – not bad for a smaller, niche, B2B brand. Plus, from the seven comments, PDS will be able to get an idea of what is good and what can be changed about the Pharmacy Shop Local program – this is a free and effective way to manage PDS’ services.
It doesn’t matter if you have five fans or 5,000 – any company can use crowdsourcing effectively and to its advantage. It doesn’t have to be on Facebook, either. Determining where your audience is and what they are talking about is all you need to establish what you can do to get feedback and generate conversation across your network. All it takes is some proper listening, and giving before you get, whether it be useful links or helpful articles to your network. Once people see you as valuable, they’ll visit your page and give you feedback. Most importantly, actually incorporating your audience’s advice into your product or service will keep people coming back and continuing to engage in dialogue, knowing you trust them and their feedback.
Social media tool of the month is a regular feature on the WordWrite Storytelling Blog that appears monthly.
_____
Deanna Ferrari is a senior account executive for WordWrite Communications
