Pebble is a cool example of an alternative to traditional concept-testing for start-ups and small businesses
One of the most exciting aspects of social media is the many diverse opportunities these spaces offer brands to connect with their publics and potential publics in new and meaningful ways.
Here's a great example of ‘crowd power’ in action - it's for Pebble - a new E-paper watch, promoted via Kickstarter, ‘the world's largest funding platform for creative projects’:
About Kickstarter
Kickstarter exemplifies just how effective crowdsourcing, concept testing and buzz generation can be in launching new creative projects.
The figures speak for themselves;
$200 million pledged to projects
1.8 million people have backed a project
20,000 projects successfully funded
Every Kickstarter project is set up and controlled by the project’s organisers. Each project offers an appropriate ‘reward’ to encourage potential supporters and people can decide to become involved in…
Is crowdsourcing a solution to your content problems?
We've posted before about the importance of engaging with users, about earning the permission to market and the importance of social objects for user engagement and amplification. By engagement, I'm referring specifically here to engaging people with content to fuel sharing and search marketing.
The problem
We know that quality content is central for attracting and engaging site users and in turn convincing them to convert into customers. Creating quality content is also expensive and must be maintained. It's easy to let the content well dry up... Similarly, with social media you can run out of integrated ideas to get your users or consumers involved with the brand in any meaningful way. Crowdsourcing is a potential solution to solve both of these challenges.
A crowdsourced solution
Where user-generated content (UGC) is most often associated with ratings, reviews, forums, sharing video and images - crowdsourcing can…
Applying the crowdsourcing approach to improve content quality
I've written before about I like the forward-thinking approach to involving customers used by Penguin in Spinebreakers, a new site created separate from the main Penguin domain to engage teenagers.I think it's a great example of the power of digital channels to target a new audience, involve and engage them in novel ways through web, email and mobile.
In this post I'll pick out some of the success factors as I see them which I think apply to all social media and content strategy initiatives
What is crowdsourcing?
In my Digital marketing books I define crowdsourcing as:
"Utilising a network of customers or other partners to gain insights for new product or process innovations and to potentially help promote a brand".
This shows how crowdsourcing can combine insight and learning with promotion of products.
Here are the…
