Examples Of Crowdsourcing: Despite the fact that crowdsourcing can require a lot of moderation and feedback in order to achieve success, there are a lot of benefits that far outweigh the negatives when it comes to crowdsourcing. You are able to reduce your costs, and increase your options and scope for creativity, and there’s often a great deal less time and effort involved in this process.
Furthermore, it is also incredibly effective in content marketing, since not only are you speeding up the process of content creation and saving money, but you are also getting your customers (and potential customers) involved, and your target audience invested in the process. You can create a bond between your brand and your followers by providing them with their 10 minutes of fame, and this will make them more loyal to your brand over time. People are more likely to tell others about something that they are passionate about if they are invested in it. That is a known fact.
Amazing examples of Crowdsourcing
The popularity of crowdsourcing has increased over the last few years, with more and more people engaging in it. This can be attributed to the realisation amongst companies that the B2C relationship has changed, and the power has shifted from the suppliers to the consumers. Instead of going against it or denying them, they have partnered up with them, and used this to their advantage instead of going against it or denying it. For many businesses, this has proved to be a wise move, and it’s something you should seriously consider for your own business, as well. You might find some inspiration from these amazing examples of Crowdsourcing if you take a look at them.
Waze
There is no doubt that Waze is one of the most successful crowd-powered start-ups out there today. The app provides users with the ability to report traffic jams and provide directions for the best route to take to avoid the jams. By measuring drivers’ speed and asking them to report road closures and traffic jams, Waze crowd-sources traffic jam information by measuring drivers’ speed and determining traffic jams.
It is a great app that proves that sometimes a company only needs a dedicated crowd in order to succeed. A number of big-name investors and suitors also expressed an interest in the company.
McDonalds Burger builder
There was a time when McDonald’s decided to give their customers a free hand in deciding what types of burgers they would like to see in their stores by letting them submit their ideas. Their perfect burgers could be created online and the rest of the country could vote on which one of their creations was the best. Furthermore, in Germany, creators were also encouraged to create their own campaigns, which included viral videos and other valuable content marketing campaigns, which cost McDonald’s nothing, because of course, the videos were free of charge for them.
McDonald’s released the winning burgers on a weekly basis, along with a picture and a short bio of the person who created the burger once they have crowned the winner.
My Starbucks idea
There is a strong presence of Starbucks on a variety of social networks, and the company encourages its customers to submit, view, and discuss their ideas with employees from various Starbucks departments. In fact, they even have a website dedicated to this very purpose, which includes a leaderboard that tracks which customers are most active when it comes to this particular feature.
This has been achieved by combining social media and experimentation with customer engagement and market research to create a cocktail that has allowed the brand to achieve success.
Lego
In our opinion, Lego, the toy company, is responsible for probably one of the best examples of Crowd-sourcing we have seen. In this company, users have the opportunity to design new products and at the same time test the demand for these products. A user can submit a design that can be voted on by other users, and that design can be chosen by other users. It is the idea that receives the most number of votes that becomes the first to move to production, and the creator receives a 1% royalty on the net revenue generated from the idea.
By increasing the number of product ideas, Lego has been able to increase customer engagement as well as increase the number of new product ideas. As a result of this particular type of engagement, a buzz is generated that is hard to reproduce by any other means. As with McDonald’s, creators take it upon themselves to promote their ideas, and in doing so, they also promote Lego as a company as a whole.
Samsung
The value of Crowdsourcing has even been realized by the big players including Samsung. There is a large Crowdsourcing facility in Palo Alto that is owned by Samsung. There is a demand from them for innovative solutions for existing electronic products and technologies that would be beneficial to them. Also, they are looking for companies and individuals who are interested in collaborating with them.
According to Samsung, in 2013 they partnered with a product development platform, Marbler, to Crowd Source ideas about how they can make use of newly discovered NASA patents to help make their products more efficient. Users could contribute to the development of the company’s next product and earn a share of revenue as a result of their efforts.
Lays
As a result of the chip manufacturer’s ten-month-long Crowdsourcing campaign “Do Us A Flavour”, they certainly reap the rewards of their efforts. Consumers were encouraged to create their very own flavour of chip and just like the others, they got the chance to vote for their favourite flavour.
Following the release of this product, ‘Cheesy Garlic Bread’ contributed to an 8% increase in sales within the first three months of its release.
Pebble
There is no doubt that Pebble exists due partially to Crowdfunding; Pebble used Kickstarter to raise the funds necessary to create the Pebble Smartwatch and then the Pebble Time Steel as a result of that technology. The company started out as a simple idea on a popular crowdfunding website called Kickstarter and has grown into a brand that is now able to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung in terms of quality and reliability.
In terms of crowdfunding success, Pebble Smartwatch is Kickstarter’s biggest success to date, but not only did they crowdfund the project, but they also crowd-sourced it by encouraging people to get involved and share their knowledge as well as their skills. As you and I are well aware, once the product is produced, ‘backers’, that is to say funders, receive rewards as part of their contribution. Either they get it at a discounted price or they get it first before anyone else gets a chance to buy it.
Greenpeace
To crowdsource for ads is one of the easiest and most popular ways of crowdsourcing. It is one of the easiest ways of crowdsourcing. The Shell Oil “Let’s Go” advertisements that Greenpeace produced for their company Shell Oil in 2012 turned heads when they crowd-sourced quotes from environmental activists.
In order to get controversial, sarcastic, and satirical quotes from their followers, they ran a contest to get them. The winning quotes were then used to create advertisements targeting the oil company, Shell. I would like to give you an example, “the ice caps will not melt themselves, you know that.”. It’s time to get started.”
Airbnb
As a matter of fact, you could say that Airbnb’s entire business model is based on crowdsourcing. It’s essentially a travel website through which individuals can list their homes and let them out to people everywhere. If it wasn’t for them, there wouldn’t be a site like Airbnb.
The company, however, has recently teamed up with eYeka, a company that facilitates crowdfunding, and they worked on a Crowdsourcing project through which filmmakers all over the world were asked to create fresh, authentic video content about the places they call home. The videos had to be 60 seconds long, and the winners win a share of 20, 000 euros. But it’s not the first time they’ve crowdsourced content. In 2013, they asked users to submit scripted shots from all over the world in the form of Vines, via Twitter. After gathering all the clips, Hollywood & Vines was put together, used in a TV advertisement and then used as a campaign..
As a result of these campaigns, Airbnb has not only acquired millions of unique pieces of content that add quality and authenticity to the Airbnb brand, but they have also been able to save themselves a significant amount of money on advertising.
There are a lot of examples of Crowdsourcing that you can come across if you look into it, and there are a number of ways in which Crowdsourcing can be used to enhance your business model. It doesn’t matter if you are a new company, an established company looking for some additional marketing, a company that is looking to engage with their customers in a more effective way. Crowdsourcing offers you the ability to go as small or large as you like, and almost always it is going to benefit you in some way.
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