CRACKING DOWN ON CROWDSOURCING

Have you ever heard of crowdsourcing before? Well, you probably have done it without knowing you have because crowdsourcing can be anything from leaving a customer review after making a purchase at your favorite store or even participating in a survey for a food company who is searching for the next big food item.

According to an article from International Business Times, titled "The Rise of Crowdsourcing: It Gets The People Going," crowdsourcing is "the practice of obtaining ideas, services, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, or more, specifically, an online community." In other words, if you, in some way, contributed in any way to a business, company, or organization of any kind, then you most likely participated in crowdsourcing.

In my opinion, I think crowdsourcing is a fantastic strategy for companies and businesses to utilize. It is a great way to build relationships with your customers and form a direct line of communication to learn about what the people want or are expecting from your company. With this, I believe these companies and businesses are more likely of becoming a lot more successful when compared to companies and businesses who do not utilize crowdsourcing and rely solely on internal ideas, strategies and feedback. While it does not probably provide companies with all of the answers they are looking for to improve their business, crowdsourcing definitely does help companies form better solutions for difficult problems they may be experiencing.

So, you may be wondering, how much does this "sourcing of the crowd" really help businesses and companies? Well, according to the previously mentioned article, business manufacturers predicted in 2019 that crowdsourcing would affect over 75 percent of consumer goods with the help from different practices of crowdsourcing. However, the article has not been updated since its initial publish date, so I am curious to know how accurate that percentage is and what it compares to now. Honestly, I would not be surprised if it was more than 75 percent because of how effective I think crowdsourcing can before the improvement in any company or business.

After reading this article, it made me wonder what tools smaller businesses and companies use to effectively use crowdsourcing and I came upon another article from DesignHill.com where it gives a list of recommended crowdsourcing websites for companies to use. This list includes websites that help companies test their software that they may be introducing, websites that offer feedback for your company's brand, and even a website that helps you with creating a name for your company or business. From product design to tracking what products and goods consumers are seeing in stores, there really is a website for everything when it comes to effective crowdsourcing.

Although there may be several advantages for when it comes to utilizing crowdsourcing, one should also expect some disadvantages. After reading an article from Phys.org, titled "New research finds that when it comes to crowdsourcing, less is more," I learned from Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Dr. Oguz A. Acar, that crowdsourcing does not always provide the most reliable solutions from consumers. "Crowdsourcing effort often yield a large number of diverse ideas but unfortunately most of those ideas are of questionable quality," said Acar. In other words, there may be a lot of response as far as fetching ideas or feedback on something but it does not mean that you will find it beneficial to the answers or solutions you are looking for.

Further into the article, Dr. Acar mentions that solutions and responses are the most appropriate when there is a reward or prize being offered. This incentive encourages more of a reliable crowdsourcing response in comparison to when no prize or reward is at stake.

Conclusively, I think crowdsourcing could be a very good thing for a company or business, especially for those that are starting up and need that type of attention and because it a cheaper strategy to utilize for when it comes to branding and other means of marketing. However, I think it is is just important, similar to what Dr. Acar said, to really think about the people you are crowdsourcing from where you should not just randomly gather a response from a random group of people but ensure that the consumers you are seeking are most than likely going to have an appropriate solution for your company or business.

Can you think of ways you have participated in crowdsourcing before? Did you know the technical term for it when you were doing it? Does your business or company benefit from crowdsourcing? Has your company tried using crowdsourcing but it failed? I would love to hear your feedback so leave a comment below!

Thank you for visiting my "column" and I look forward to squeezing out my next blog post where I will be discussing personal branding. I will be back next week so stay tuned!

-CC