The Power of Crowdsourcing In 2015

Crowdsourcing for many companies is just the latest buzz word. Yet, if approached correctly a strategy behind crowdsourced content and collaborative ideas can offer extreme value in gathering customer insight, creating marketing content for free, and generating passionate and excited leads. And it’s all growing from social media.

The Collaborative Economy

The Collaborative Economy enables people to efficiently get what they need from each other – with social at the core. According to Jeremiah Owyang, founder of the Crowd Companies Council, “People use powerful technologies that enable Crowd-funding, Peer-to-Peer lending, the Maker Movement, and the Sharing Economy. If you look closely, the crowd is becoming like a company: self-funding, designing, producing, and sharing what people already have.”

The Collaborative Economy and ‘social’ as we’ve come to know it are one in the same and build off each other – both involve people connecting with each other, sharing options and influence inspired by connection.

As such, the next wave of social is sure to enable new business models and personalization – enabling collaboration so we can better understand customers and deploy highly personalized experiences that delight people. It’s about creating networks of people engaging with each other and thereby inspiring and requiring new services.

Chegg is a great example. In Shareable Magazine’s book, Share or Die, Neal Gorenflo writes that this sharing mindset is common among college students who have limited resources. Knowing this, Chegg came to fruition. For resource-strapped students, Chegg enables students to trade textbooks, rather than buy at high margin bookstores.  Social networking is part of their inherent behavior.

Here is what’s starting to happen and how it will change the way we do business:

1. People are empowered to get what they need from each other.
2. The crowd is becoming like a company – bypassing inefficient corporations.
3. Like social, in the last phase, corporations must use the same strategies to regain relevancy.
4. This requires a business model change: Product > Service > Marketplace > Repeat.
5. As a result, companies are resilient – connected, empowering others, built to last, and profitable.

Are you ready?