Crowd-sourcing in marketing functions

Traditionally market and product research have been conducted in closed groups, but the large pool of individuals available through crowd-sourcing has opened up the industry to a wider community of diverse backgrounds and talents. Marketing and advertising agencies have successfully used crowd-sourcing for a variety of tasks including product research and development, promotion and advertising, and market research. Crowd-sourcing provides companies with access to a large number of ideas from individuals with outlooks perhaps more varied to those within a single company or group, as well as giving access to a huge pool of individuals with diverse expertise.

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is one those sites which offer a number of Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) that can be completed by individuals who are then paid for their efforts by the firm that created the task. The fees paid can range from 1 US cent for simple data entry, up to a maximum of around 11 US dollars, for more complex tasks such as copywriting or website usability testing.

Sites like Mechanical Turk often offer companies access to these skills at lower rates than their salaried employees, but this does raise the question of whether these lower-paid workers are being exploited by larger companies and the effect this has on their existing employees. There is also the issue, particularly in market research activities, as to whether the individual could be biased towards the company doing the paying, and because of this it’s recommended that very specific guidelines are set when gathering the information.

Many online advertising campaigns have also embraced the idea of crowd-sourcing, utilising the power of the masses to come up with innovative concepts.  Idea Bounty is a website used whereby agencies can post briefs, and the best ideas will take home the bounty. The benefit for the agency is that they only pay for what they want, and the creatives are not restrained by any long term commitment.

User-generated content and Web 2.0

Web 2.0 refers to the recent internet, and to use the well-known phrase: “where users no longer just browse the web, but are the web”. Time Magazine paid tribute to Web 2.0 by making their person of the year in 2006, “You”, meaning all people generating content on the web. Websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, owe the majority of their success to a user-centric design, which facilitates a more interactive and social way of absorbing and creating of media. Brands who want to communicate effectively in this environment must provide content that is useful, entertaining, and above all places user-experience first.

Facebook is the currently the second largest site on the net after Google, and with 400 million users, most of whom have shared very specific demographic information, it is a extremely powerful site for marketers. Facebook allows marketers to interact with consumers where they are most comfortable, in a community of their friends, where peer to peer recommendations are king.

There are many great examples of company Facebook fan pages that have had great success. Pringles have realised their target market enjoys videos with humorous content, and also engage with their users by creating status updates that prompt user discussion while maintaining an informal and casual tone. Redbull have the edge over the rest with their access to some unbelievable extreme sports video content on their Facebook fan page, and also offer Twitter feeds from their various sponsored athletes.

According to Callan Green who works in public relations and social media at Bailey Gardiner, the key pointers to a successful Facebook presence are: “know your audience, provide quality, regular content, encourage discussion and engagement, and do not take yourself too seriously.”

Twitter allows companies to actively engage with customers with the use of short status messages, and also gain market intelligence with their real-time search facility. According to Twitter the microblogging service also “shrinks the emotional distance between company and your customers” and builds these relationships through direct contact, and feedback. Old Spice recently combined Twitter and YouTube in an highly successful and innovative social media campaign, where the hunky guy from the Old Spice Ads, (who has become the new Chuck Norris) read out Twitter statuses tagged with @oldspice, dressed in only a towel. Twitter was crucial to the viral nature of the campaign, while YouTube provided the video platform.

Video is an entertaining medium that will keeps a user more engaged than reading reams of text-only content. Users are searching for video that provides instruction, value, and entertainment, and YouTube has an audience viewing over 2 million videos per day. The University of Phoenix Online is the leader in it’s field by providing compelling online testimonials to convert users into enrolled students. Home Depot is another brand effectively using a sponsored YouTube channel and this has helped establish themselves as a trusted expert in the field of home maintenance. The world’s largest video community also offers advertising opportunities such as inVideo Ads or YouTube video ads, that can be targeted to very specific user demographics.

Blogging allows companies to open dialogue and built trust within their customer base. Company blogging is the medium through which companies can communicate directly with customers, listen to what they are saying and analyse current trends. There is, however, a barrier to entry for large corporates, as with all social media, mostly due to insufficient information and fears of the risks involved. Many companies and eMarketing agencies build a network of respected bloggers in various industries, who are then paid to blog about the companies products and services.
This kind of marketing is effective as it is consumer to consumer dialogue, which is quite often regarded as being more trustworthy than standard marketing messages. Blogging networks such as PayPerPost.com build a network of diverse bloggers who companies can approach to blog on various topics for an agreed fee.

The benefits
As the web opens up to more social, collaborative media creation, the content is becoming more edgy and less restricted by corporate guidelines. Although the new methods for using this new landscape may step on the toes of the more traditional marketers, those that understand benefits of user-generated content and crowd-sourcing, will have more tools at their disposal and this may lead to a greater understanding of their customers, while at the same time offer consumers an pro-active outlet to demand better products and services.

References:
Crowd-Generated Content (CGC): What Is It? – http://allthingsv.com/tag/crowdsourcing/
Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_generated_content
Click Advisor – www.clickadvisor.com/…/Whitla_Crowdsourcing_Application_in_marketing.pdf
Pay per Post – www.payperpost.com
YouTube Brands: 5 Outstanding Leaders in YouTube Marketing – http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/youtube-brands/
Killer Facebook fan pages – http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/killer-facebook-fan-pages/
Youtube Fact Sheet – http://www.youtube.com/t/fact_sheet
Twitter – http://business.twitter.com/twitter101

The software reviewed below is by no means a complete list of all eCommerce solutions, but many eCommerce sites have chosen these platforms based on their feature requirements, scalability, or compatibility with their existing website platform. The selected options are open-source software, (GPL/GNU or OSL 3.0) and require a knowledge of PHP/MySQL technologies or the services of a professional web developer.

Costs for these can vary, mostly depending on the amount of support needed from software developers and the level of customisation required for your shop. For example, an off-the-shelf template-driven GetShopped WordPress site (ideal for some products) could set you back, whereas a totally customised Magento Commerce site could be in the region of US$10 000 — and offer total scalability and peace of mind as your store grows.

1. Magento

Magento is currently by far the most popular open-source eCommerce system in use today. With $25-billion so far in transactions and over two million downloads, it is truly the most feature-rich and customisable eCommerce platform available. The platform offers complete control over your store front-end, functionality, and order management. The powerful back-end facility controls search marketing, catalogue management, customer administration, and is also backed by a well-supported Magento Connect community. Magento is suitable for meduim to large businesses who need software that has unlimited potential for growth.

Download Magento Commerce here.

Follow Magento on Twitter

2. GetShopped

This plugin for WordPress is probably the simplest to integrate, provided your website is built in WordPress of course. It is ideal for shop owners with a small budget who do not require extensive front-end features. Activate the plugin in your WordPress backend, customise a couple of theme pages, update your settings and you are good to go.

Take a look at the feature list, documentation, and site showcase on www.getshopped.org

Follow GetShopped on Twitter

3. Shopp

Another WordPress eCommerce plugin to look at is Shopp, which offers nice flexibility, and an impressive feature list. It comes at a small price though from $55 per site.

Take a look at: www.shopplugin.net

4. VirtueMart

VirtueMart is one of the the most popular Joomla extensions available, and comes with the advantage of extensive support via their community. It is also highly customisable and well-known as the best eCommerce solution for a Joomla-based website.

View the extension website here: www.virtuemart.net

Follow on Twitter here

5. osCommerce

osCommerce launched in 2003 and was the platform of choice for its time, but due to limited customisation and add-ons as well as some security flaws, it has been mostly out-classed by other software that is currently on the market. osCommerce, despite its limitations, has 12,700 live stores, 6,000 add-ons and 234,000 community members.

Visit osCommerce on the web at www.oscommerce.com

5+1. Zen Cart

It is an off-shoot from osCommerce but offers more front-end customisations through the use of templates. Zen Cart also has quite an impressive array of features and a well-supported community of software add-ons.

View the full feature list at www.zen-cart.com

I’ve broken it down into a some of the main social  networking platforms we’ve tried out – feel free to comment below and express your opinion!

It’s been said that the average Facebook user spend 55 minutes per day on Facebook, that they have 130 friends, and they are a member of 13 groups. Worldwide active users are 400 million, 50% of active users login every day, and there are 60 million status updates per day.. (View more here) Does your website boast these stats? If not it’s a great idea to reach users where they are active – on Facebook.

Facebook has great functionality for sharing news, creating events, and uploading photos and video amongst your fan base. Creating that fan-base can be a difficult task, so you need to add value by creating something useful/entertaining on the fan page, such as an application, game or competition. Post not only marketing information on your fan page, post websites that you think may be interesting to your fan-base. Facebook also offers promotion for your Facebook page with their own pay per click advertising (PPC) system.

A Facebook presence for your company can have it’s downside though, and as with all social media, your fan page needs to be constantly monitored for negative feedback, and dealt with by contacting the customer, or by removing the offending post if necessary.

View the Refresh Creative Media fan page here >

We at Refresh Creative Media has found YouTube to be a  great way to showcase the video production arm of our business. By embedding YouTube videos on our site we’re also saving cash on bandwidth, (Thanks Google!) and at the same time promoting our videos on the largest video network in the world.

A YouTube channel is also a great way of creating a presence on YouTube, as it allows a limited amount of branding and customisation of colours and page layout on your channel. Users can also subscribe to your channel and receive updates when new content is available.

View the Refresh Creative Media YouTube channel here >

Many people struggle to get their heads around Twitter, and for some of the older less-savvy folks Facebook is enough –  but restricting yourself to only 140 characters? The obvious reason for marketing yourself on Twitter is again the user base, but also the ease of updates to your followers. Twitter updates can be linked to your website content management system and automatically post news/events to your profile via the Twitter API, Twitter also has a wealth of apps available for your mobile and MAC/PC.

Hash tag your Twitter posts and users searching on that particular topic may easier come across your post and potentially follow your profile. Searching for your brand on Twitter can also turn-up some useful market research – direct from your customers.

Take a sqizz at the Refresh Creative Media Twitter page here >

Blogging with WordPress, Blogger, or any other chosen platform has enormous benefit to the search engine visibility of your website. WordPress in particular has great SEO built-in, and regular updates to a blog is what Google craves.. Pick a topic you know something about, and try and include as many keywords related to your post as possible. (Without making it unreadable of course) Then tell Google about it via Sitemaps (A great plugin available here) and by linking to your blog post via your homepage. Encourage sharing of your post with social networking buttons to promote to Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Buzz and more.

That is my 2 cents on social media marketing, please contact us at Refresh Creative Media to get your campaign started, or for a no obligation consultation.