Crowdsourcing content consists in collecting information from the web and users, filtering it, and taking the best to reuse it and transform it into fresh content that fixes your brand by exploiting its strengths.

In this sense, crowdsourcing content is pretty cool because you take the time and “work” of many other people at the same time. So, it is easier to re-publish the photos and texts that your followers make, than to make the material yourself.

WARNING: The following article is over 2800 words and is not for beginners, it collects many secrets and quality information.

Also, the amount of content that we can find in social media is endless, there is always material to do Crowdsourcing.

Most of all, with this crowdsourcing content, we open a window of communication with our audience, generate friendly feedback with our users and use the process of collecting information for the benefit of the brand, obtaining “FREE” content that helps our online growing.

Now, the million dollar question, how do we do crowdsourcing content in our social media?

Well, in truth, there are many practical ways to do it, among them are:

• The re-posts and re-tweets
• Survey
• Open questions
• Request content to the public

Therefor, these are just some tactics you can handle to get the data and the results you want for your account and each of these techniques has sub-classifications.

And, if you add the use of good copywriting techniques, this will take your content to the next level.

Let’s talk a bit more deeply about how we can use all these tools to achieve success.

TYPES OF CROWDSOURCING CONTENT

Re-post and retweets

First of all, it´s all about using the post of other users by doing repost with the app of your preference or retweet, in the case the social network you are working with it is Twitter the best you can do is to make a quote, while in Facebook you can use the share function.

Therefor, we can do Re-post of the publications where other users tagged us, posts where they use our product or anything that seems cool.

Tips for doing repost

However, if your account is relatively new or you do not have tags available to use as crowdsourcing content you can apply any tool available in the App Store that allows you to identify your most loyal fans and ask them permission to use their content, as long as it has to see with your product, service or interests.

And, it is necessary that you evaluate the type of publication that you select to make repost because many times the photos or words are not the most indicated to share in your network.

It is specially relevant, that you make sure that the backgrounds and the color balance in the post are harmonious with the visual identity of your brand, in addition some photos have the possibility of being edited so you can play with that to change the image the way it fixes you better for do the crowdsourcing content.

Besides that, if you are going to make use of the repost never forget the graphic line of your account. Therefor, if all your publications are in black and white, alter the tones of the content for this not to break the style that defines you, so if all your publications are pink, you can use a filter to give it that color tone.

 Follower or influencer tribute

With this strategy we do crowdsourcing through praise. It consists in leaving your brand in the background and featuring a follower or an influencer who is doing something great. This works very well to reward the attitudes of your followers, that benefit your brand and condition them to do more.

We all feel good when they appreciate us or kisses our ass. So when you praise a fan or an influencer, we give them the ability to relate more to your brand and speak even better about it.

This crowdsourcing technique can be done very simply or very elaborately. So, we might congratulate a follower who gave us retweet several times in a week with a post. So this will motivate him to interact even more with us and the other followers who see this user and.

Also, remember that it’s not just followers, you can also choose a strategic influencer that has a considerable number of followers, who may be interested in your product.

Anyway, keep in mind that more than increasing the number of followers, it is all about loyalty with your brand.

Besides that, you can involve your product or services while maintaining the identity of your brand and your own style.

EXAMPLES OF THIS TECHNIQUE

Here are some examples of tributes you can do as a reward to one of your most active followers:

• A simple mention: simple tweet mentioning the most active follower and thanking him.
• Custom drawing: An illustrator or designer for example, could make a personalized draw of your brand and you can repost. In this way he is rewarding his follower and at the same time promoting his services of illustration.
• Personalize the product: A donuts brand can reward the “Follower of the week” by putting the name of the user in one of their donuts and upload this photo to the account.  Besides that, this congratulates the fan and promotes the food.A shotout or recommendation:
• A shotout or recommendation: If you manage a fashion brand and some famous fashion blogger does mention to your product you can make a special publication for him or her, recommending all your followers to follow him or her back.
• Congratulations on your birthday or events: Congratulating your influencer in your birthday can have great results.

As a result, whatever be the technique that you use, try to make it look genuine and human, never do it in an automated way because it looks like robotic SPAM.

Similarly, crowdsourcing content is like the humanization content. So, in order to be more human, you can include names, nicknames, emoticons, memes, dates, details about them (to explain the context), explain the reason why you a recommendation, anything that makes the message looks custom.

TIP: You can lean on any application that makes it easier for you to choose your most active audience.

Interviews

You have to keep in mind that interviews can be recorded in audio, written, filmed or photographed. There are three methods to use interviews for the benefit of your brand.

Entrevistas Offline

This is all about interviewing people at events, conferences or on the street, in real life.

So, the opinions and conversations you get will be a useful material for crowdsourcing in your accounts, especially if the interviewees are members related to your community of followers or personalities of interest to your audience.

Offline interviews- Inside the company

Even if you do not have a single follower you can involve all the workers in providing fresh content for your account, even if you only have 3 people in your company, they can interview among them.

Therefor, by doing this, the creative ingenuity of each of the departments merges and is translated into information of benefit to be shared.

This, in addition to being a good strategy to get content from different points of view, also it is a great group practice to keep workers familiar and loyal to the brand. Therefor, that in educational institutes, students and teachers can be integrated into group interviews.

Online interview

We can make complex and simple interviews, long or short, in a video conference, with a super influencer or with a simple tweet asking something to a follower.

Seems like, sometimes it is spontaneous and fans will answer our questions with long texts or with excellent arguments that may be of great interest to the brand.

Ceirtanly, that’s why it’s great to constantly ask questions on all channels, whether blogs, podcasts, videos, networks or e-mail; therefor, you always have to ask the users for their opinion, the passionate answers are a source of unlimited and free content.

Above all, if this happen to you,  ask a person if it is possible to re-publish their opinion in our account with their consent.

In some cases, we can make a good eye-catching image with a quote-style custom design, making a mention to the user. Same as if we are in a hurry we can take a simple “screenshot”, it really doesn´t matter the quality, the important thing is to do it.

As a result, the fidelity of the account will be practically eternal. We can take this to the extreme, some shows or very popular segments are based solely on reading the answers they have obtained from the public.

Ask for content

Certainly, there is nothing wrong with asking your followers content to generate good post, on the contrary, so it is a completely valid strategy and is another way to do crowdsourcing with your account.

In addition to generate loyalty with your audience also it lowers the costs in the marketing.

Ask directly for content

Ask them to send you photos or tweets to publish, of course making the mentions to the intellectual authors. In fact there are accounts that based its plan only in publishng the things that their followers send them.

Offer free advertising  

It is the same as the last one, but users have more benefit.

Therefor, offering free advertising helps increase the number of followers in your account. Also it is uploaded with external content and generates less work in the thought process.

So, it suffices with an appropriate writing that promotes the product or the personality to which you are advertising.

As a result, there are many accounts on networks that are dedicated solely to advertising the things they send to them or to those that label them.

Invitation to ask the experts 

This is one of the most useful tools to engage the audience. For example, on Twitter, there was an account in trend, here you can “see the future”, by using the hashtag #Dimealgonegra, in this place the audience asked for hours all kind of stupidities.

Another entertaining way, low cost and very intelligent tool to keep the audience interested are the live streams that you can do trough stories.

Celebrities and personalities use this a lot to interact with the fans in real time, generating instant content with the participation of the followers.

Even more, a lot of shows and accounts base its strategy in exclusively in answering the public questions.

Sky is the limit

Let´s set an famous example: the video of Justin Bieber called “Where are you now”.

This clip is absolutely based in crowdsourcing content, it was made entirely with the collaboration of bieb´s fans, who took into the video all the illustration techniques that you can see there.

As a result, you can see how the draws appear in Justin Bieber´s skin. Also, this helped the singer to earn so much more engagement among his fans.

This is absolutely a well tought strategy and i’m  100% secure that the followers became in eternal fans of the singer because imagine the feeling of seeing your own draws in your favorite singer video.

 

Open questions

“I’m gonna leave this question here and go” it might be a simple technique to create immediate interaction with your followers. You can talk about ideologies, actual or relevant subjects to ask for your public’s opinions.

First all of, it’s well known that the controversy is a useful weapon, to begin with, fast interactions that give a lot of comments.

Therefor, you’ll be surprise to see the amount of answers that you only get by doing this easy technique.

So, to answer the comments and create a feedback with your followers is very important.

Later, tag your the followers that had the most interaction with your post. So, this will make them sharing their opinion and also you give them a sense of being ‘VIP’ for you.

Post the answers

The answers that you get you can publish it too, that way you’ll be creating new content

So, here are some question styles:

Simple question

Try using a simple image with an unicolor background and a little bit of text.

Plus, you can add your logo, URL or the @username of your brand, following your graphic line to avoid the look of being and advertising.

So, the idea is to have a simpler look and invite the followers to talk.

True or false questions

Are one of the favorite in social media.

Survey

On Twitter, you can use the survey tool to start a debate among your followers, so this allows them to express their opinion and to share it with you and their friends on the web.

Strong affirmations with questions

To say a strong and controversial opinion about something, can take you to a breaking point that generates a lot of comments in your accounts.

So, you cand add a little question as: are you agree? is this true or false? why? although you might sound a little superb, it’s a good strategy.

For example: “It’s better to have a true friend than 100 that be fake”, true or false?

Bait games comments

Let’s say it’s a little bit similar to the strategy of open questions. The difference is that the interaction with your followers is related with games and entertainment topics.

Therefor, that create content with this technique open the doors to an interactive community.

Intelligence test

This is one of the techniques of “comment bait” that without putting to much effort give the reaction wanted.

• Mathematical question with the title "only for genius".

• Guessing games with certain difficulty grade.
• Alphabet soup.

And seriously, people is extremely pride and competitive with this games.

Seems like, a good source to find intelligence quizzes are the study material for entering college.

Complete the sentence

“This cold makes me ___________”.

“In my suitcase I putted a t _______.”

“The hamburguer to cook it perfect must have  ____________.”

Certainly, with this kind of post you give the oportunirty to your followers of letting fly their creativity. The goal: earn empaty with what your posting.

Xs vs. Ys

Another technique, is to ask for likes or comments to see who wins.

Guessing game

You can use any riddle taken from a children’s book, also you can give a creative twist to the game and associate it with your product or service. It’s great!

Ratings

Ask people to give you a rating or score on anything. It is basically an open question but with a numerical scale.

Sopa de letras

The alphabet soup and other similar things that appear in children’s playbook are very useful in the crowdsourcing content.

Therefor, the ideal is not to tell them the results but to ask them to write the words found in the comments. Tell them only that there are more than 5 for example.

Final thoughts about crowdsourcing content

In conclusion, after reading this article you probably know best about crowdsourcing content. These strategies can be the impulse you’ve been looking for your social media. Take advantage of this genuinely appealing source of content for your followers.

Most noteworthy, remember that it is a matter of transforming information to get the most out of it.

Above all, never steal it or be a cheap copy of another existing brand.

Although, if you do not have much time or creativity to copy it is better than doing nothing.

It is better to be a cheap copy and publish pure content of others than to publish nothing.

I know that many people will criticize me in the comments of this but I am willing to defend it.

Because I also know a lot of people who do this and they are not at all bad.

It is simple, collect the information, make a clean-up version and give your followers the highest quality content. This will position your brand above the rest.

Therefor, from Vissonar we challenge you to do crowdsourcing content as much as you can! Did you like this post? Is there anything you disagree with? Do you have any questions about this topic? We invite you to leave your comments.

PD: Remember that our post aren’t light, they are heave and dense. We are continuisly updating so please leave your comments for us to continue adding more information. (This is also Crowdsourcing content!).