How to Use Twitter to Crowdsource Ideas
September 02 2010 by Elizabeth Glomb ~ 3 CommentsAccording to Wikipedia, crowdsourcing is “the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community through an open call.” Essentially, what you are doing is asking the community a question or asking them for help on a task, and you get your results from them. To simplify it even more, you are tapping into the collective intelligence of the public for ideas and opinions to help you complete a business related task, or really any task that requires other people’s input. You can find the best restaurant in a certain location that can fit your budget, or people’s favorite brand of running shoes. I use crowdsourcing all the time by asking my Twitter followers for their input. In fact, my friend Amy Liz Martin, actually crowdsourced her recent vacation to Costa Rica. You can really get input on anything you can think of. In her blog post about what she learned, she gave some really useful information and got me thinking.
Since I am a huge fan of using twitter to crowdsource for ideas and inspiration, I decided to investigate how I could use Twitter more effectively to get the answers to my questions. Is one method more effective than others?
Why am I only referencing Twitter right now? Because it’s probably one of the best crowdsourcing tools you could use, because results are acquired much faster and is far less time consuming on your end.
So I took to my second favorite form of finding information and went to the internet to find some answers. Thanks to all the articles I was able to find on the matter, I was able to come up with a few guidelines to help you use Twitter to crowdsource, and how to get your followers involved to get the best responses.
Let people know what you’re doing
I find it extremely helpful when I make an announcement about why I’m asking the question. “Hey Tweeps, help me answer this question” or “Writing an article about _____, what are your thoughts?” I have found that if I start out my question with some sort of request, I will get more responses a majority of the time.
Give the people who helped you some recognition
You don’t have to write out each individual’s name, but make sure you thank them on twitter. Thank people who responded to you by sending them an @ message on twitter to thank them for your input. It’s important because those same people will be more likely to contribute again when necessary. This also goes for when people ReTweet your question. If someone ReTweets it, make sure to thank them.
Ask Open ended questions
Since Twitter is about conversations, you don’t want to get only one word responses. You will also get more responses if your followers don’t have to do any research to get the answer. The harder it is for them to respond, the less likely you’ll get any volunteers.
Don’t be afraid to ask follow up questions
If someone makes a great point while crowdsourcing, don’t be afraid to ask them directly to expand on their comment. You can get some great material out of continuing conversations that stem from the original response.
Make it informal
People are more likely to respond to questions if the question isn’t too formal. I will usually respond to questions people ask when they are questions I can answer without doing additional research. No one wants to take a significant amount of time to answer a question. The more work I have to do to come up with an answer, the less likely I am to answer it. Make it simple.
Make sure you contribute yourself
Think of asking your followers as a bank; you have to make deposits before you can make a withdrawal. If you want your community to respond, you need to be willing to respond to other people’s requests for help. You can’t ask for help before you’re willing to help other people. This also goes for ReTweeting people’s requests for help. If you ReTweet other people’s crowdsourcing attempts, they will likely return the favor when necessary
Ask a few Twitter followers to RT your question
I will always do this in the form of a DM. To help you get more response to the call for help, having people ReTweet the question will get it out to more people and therefore more people will respond.
Some additional VERY useful links and articles about Crowdsourcing:
Jeff Howe, Crowdsourcing.com
Bnet.com, What is Crowdsourcing?
How have you used Twitter for crowdsourcing? What advice or tips would you add?
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