Nowadays, it is almost impossible to define specific boundaries between offline and online spaces. Online space represents a natural extension of the environment we live in, whereby any activity in the offline sphere can obtain its online reflection and vice versa.
Apart from categorization based on individual preferences, internet users can be seen as a heterogeneous mass capable of undertaking and implementing a wide range of activities. The phenomenon in question is described by the term crowdsourcing, and its results can in some situations exceed the ones we obtain by a classic approach of reaching out to individual experts or organizations.
By developing communication strategies based on the crowdsourcing methodology, we provide access to online space in which collected knowledge is stimulated, guided and then turned into structural and measurable results. We do not approach crowd only as a destination which can offer final solutions but as a source of indicators which cannot be detected in the traditional approach and which are turned into strategic opportunities by further development. Our work is based on the four basic crowdsourcing manifestations:
Crowd wisdom
Joint work of individuals with different experiences, knowledge and affinities allows discovering invisible information and finding solutions which can exceed individual approaches with their quality, i.e. they can help in situations requiring solutions to problems, decision-making or anticipation.
Crowd creation
Managing the creative potential of the crowd with the aim to implement activities whose outcome is the final solution which can have a structural form or represent intellectual capital which facilitates further development.
Crowd voting
One of the most common crowdsourcing activities, owing to which a collective judgment of the mass becomes a means of evaluation, filtration and different forms of content management.
Crowdfunding
Alternative form of project financing in the early development stages, which completely relies on the collection of resources via the Internet, by animating potential users and people who recognize its value.
While planning the activities that will be based on crowdsourcing, we take over all the necessary steps for the creation of efficient and productive environment in which the communication will take place:
— Analysis of crowdsourcing potential in the context of specific goals
— Mapping the relevant public and their online preferences
— Identifying adequate online channels and development of featured communication tools
— Making an open call and facilitating a participatory process
— Result analysis and extracting new value in the form of creative solutions, i.e. structural information which has immediate application in the clients’ strategic development.