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I will talk about two concepts in this post: social media etiquette and how novel is crowdsourcing- exploiting the groundswell for ideas (Groundswell, Li & Bernoff).
Social Media etiquette is not detached from other forms of etiquette, in fact closely related to email etiquette. Search engine optimization vendor, Digital Labz lists the top 11 rules of social media etiquette on its blog . The one that stuck with me most was ’stop pushing the envelope’. It’s true that organizations are trying to reach out to publics, requesting for connections (expecting fans on facebook) etc. However, if you ask for too much from your publics there is a potential for them to completely shut you off. The other extreme is when organizations dive into the groundswell but fail to keep up with their publics’ enthusiasm or simply get distracted by apparently more pressing projects. A particular case in sight is Toyota\’s USA Newsroom which was last updated by the company in December ‘09 clarifying its position regarding a media attack from Los Angeles Times. Over 200 comments have been posted by Toyota enthusiasts who strongly express their solidarity for the company till today but there are no acknowledgments or responses from the company! Clearly Toyota is not listening, preoccupied dealing the recent product recall crisis! This would surely not score high on a social media etiquette scale.
The other concept I want to discuss is crowdsourcing. Groundswell described how Credit Mutuel the French bank used crowdsourcing to establish its slogan – “the bank you can talk to” and harness ideas for improving its products/services. However, real success will be achieved if the bank can continually engage and respond to its customers who have enthusiastically providing ideas. I would argue though that crowdsourcing is not a completely novel idea, its just that this time around Web 2.0 is the tool for engagement. I remember as a child excitedly sending Kwality Walls survey forms to suggest how I would want my favorite ice cream to taste or a campaign by the popular cosmetic brand in India Lakme that seeked its customers to design the lip color they desire. The campaign was quite successful as shades suggested by customers were developed and launched in the market.
Outsourcing ideation to customers thus is not a novel concept it’s just that now its done via social media. However, crowdsourcing has its limitations as customers are not experts on product development, legal bindings, quality considerations and market norms. There can be only limited application of crowdsourcing.
Do you see crowdsourcing as a sustainable method of ideation?
Thank you
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