If they say 2 heads are better than one, I wonder what a community of heads will make.
Crowdsourcing, which means using ‘crowds’ to ‘source’ solutions to your problems, uses this simple concept to bring forth great ideas.
James Surowiecki said in his fascinating book, “The wisdom of crowds” that large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant. Together, they are better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions and even predicting the future.
Companies today are crowdsourcing to develop new technologies, design advertising campaigns, analyze data and solve business problems. It represents a highly effective and cheap alternative to fulfill an almost limitless variety of business needs.
Over here, I have collected 8 tools that can help your business leverage on the wisdom of crowds.
1. InnoCentive
Solves Your Problems
InnoCentive is based on a simple idea: if a firm cannot solve a problem on its own, why not use the reach of the Internet to see if someone else can?
This resulted in the establishment of the world’s first Open Innovation Marketplace with a global network of more than 180,000 problem solvers (trust me, they are real good at what they do).
Among all, “you can find engineers, scientists, inventors, and business people with expertise in life sciences, engineering, chemistry, math, computer science, and entrepreneurship.”
Companies can post their challenges on the InnoCentive website, and offer registered Solvers significant financial awards for the best solutions. “Solvers” compete to win cash “prizes” offered by the companies.
Around 900 challenges have been posted so far by about 150 firms, including big multinationals such as Procter & Gamble.
2. Chaordix
Brings Business Innovation
Chaordix is catered to companies that want to engage the crowd to “submit, discuss, refine and rank ideas or other contributions via the web” in order to discover “the most-likely-to-succeed solutions”. Chaordix provides you with all you need to adopt crowdsourcing for your business advantage.
3. Poptent
Crowdsourcing Your Ads?
Poptent is a startup that crowdsources advertising ideas. The company brings together a vibrant community of filmmakers, actors, comedians, animators and link them with companies who need their services. Brands can post their requests for an ad, which are then produced and submitted by Poptent’s community of talents.
According to Poptent, members can also show their work, build a portfolio, collaborate with other creators and freely utilize a wide range of features provided by the site. Brands like Harley Davidson and even Procter & Gamble are using Poptent, so clearly this is not just another amateur channel.
To participate on the site, advertisers pay Poptent a fee and then post guidelines as to what they’re looking for, along with assets like company logos. Poptent members then film and submit their ads ideas to the site. If an advertiser finds an ad they like, they can buy it for a relatively cheap price compared to traditional media agencies.
4. CrowdSpring
Logos Designed By The Crowds
Crowdspring gathers and leverages on a large community of designers to provide an effective, easy and affordable logo and custom graphics design service for small business.
You can post design projects or brief copywriting assignments, specify the price you are willing to pay and then choose from a wide range of ideas submitted from around the globe. On average, there are more than 70 submissions per project. The price you pay for the crowd to design your desired logo or tagline starts from US $200.
5. Brand Tags
See What People Think About Your Brand
The whole idea of brand tags revolves around how “a brand exists entirely in people’s heads”.
Therefore, people are asked to tag associated words that pop into their head when they think of a particular brand. These responses are compiled into a “tag cloud” that shows which words are used most often.
To date, brand tags already have thousands of brands and more than 1.7 million tags on its site.
In some cases, popular tags translate into brutal truth for brand managers. Nevertheless, in times where openness and honesty become important values for your brand, asking the crowds what they think is vital for decision making.
6. customAdart
Get The Perfect Image!
With customAdart, you can have the crowd create your perfect image at the price you set. This company is transforming the old stock photography model by allowing advertisers to post requests for specific shots and getting members to submit their best works to satisfy them.
Advertisers begin by posting a job briefing on the site, which includes a description of what they’re looking for, a price and a deadline. Prices start from as low as US $100 and posting a new job costs around US $50.
7. Aardvark
Get Answers From The Crowd
Asked a question and got no answer? It will never happen at Aardvark. No need to search the web for general answers, the service connects to people who belong to your social graph. The underlying principle is that people you know should be able to give better advice than a robotic search engine.
This service also leaves a lot of room for personalization. For instance, you can choose the communities you want the questions to direct to and use Facebook Connect, Twitter or other services to give Aardvark permission to see who your friends are. It only reaches out to those friends who have signed up so no worries for spam.
Companies can also use this service to become a qualified expert in several categories and build their credibility in the community.
8. Namethis
Come Up With The Perfect Name
As we all know, finding an appropriate and memorable name for your product or brand can be a time-consuming process.
Why go through all the guessing whether the name works with consumers when you can just ask them directly?
Currently under renovation, Namethis was set up for people looking to source names for their business and products. The cost for businesses to participate is $99 and the winner receives $40. For the last fourteen months, the company has named more than 700 projects.
Other Business Resource
1. Listen To The Social Media Buzz With 38 Free Tools!
2. Know Your Numbers: 10 Free Web Analytics Tools For Your Website
3. Three Successful Small Businesses on Social Media
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