The contents of three hot Web2.0 Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook are composed of people from all over the world's contribution. Jeff Howe, Editor and the author of CROWDSOURCING, introduced the new “crowdsourcing” phenomenon on a YouTube clip to indicate that consumers’ involvement has altered companies business model for innovation. In the past, companies counted heavily on consumer behavior studies to communicate and market to the end-users. But now, utilizing the new crowd “prosumer” (prosumer = producers + consumers) might be an even more down-to-earth and creative way for business to sustain competitive.
Inspiration comes with stories and people like to listen to stories. I think one of the reasons that crowdsourcing becomes popular because almost everyone is more likely impressed by stories from your family, friends, neighbors, or maybe someone who lives in another continent but share with the similar thoughts and feelings like you do. From the psychological perspectives, people tend to pay attention to things that are more relevant to them. Now, crowdsourcing make common people like you and me to speak out and share those stories to the world. We may be not special or famous but seems like some small thoughts brings bigger meanings.
Crowdsourcing is also an excellent approach to build up a successful, long-term customer relationship. If the ultimate goal of marketing is to communicate with the consumers, what other strategies can be better than letting them speak out? Two-way communication not only shows the company cares about their consumers but also helps it to gather consumer data and even observes consumer preference to predict trends.
I feel that no matter how the technology moves forward, at the end of the day, communications matter that how personal-touch this business/company/brand is. Interaction, involvement, caring may be always important…
I'd Rather Be Taught In World of Warcraft
14 years ago
Crowd sourcing definitely allows for unique innovation and is certainly a marketing tool to find out what consumers are looking to improve upon. It should be interesting how many companies utilize this strategy going forward. I wonder if competitors of companies that already use crowd sourcing monitor their forum to gain any edge?
ReplyDeleteHave you guys ever read the Zara case? It's somewhat related in that the Zara retail chain encourages it's sales associates, managers, and even customers to help them keep up with the latest trends or put forth ideas based on the latest styles. They're very successful for always pumping out new styles. Perhaps crowd sourcing might be more effective in some industries than others.
ReplyDeleteIt should be interesting to see if crowdsourcing will replace or change the way marketing research is done. If customers can speak directly to companies, is there a need for such high levels of marketing research? As a marketer, I hope not but it should be interesting to see what effect crowdsourcing is going to have on companies structures in the future.
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