Crowdsourcing in the Era of Digitalization: Technologies and Platforms for Collaborative Creation

The traditional path for creating products, services, or content involves the work of an internal or external team tasked with executing project assignments. This is a proven method but one that is limited by the knowledge, skills, and experience of the group members, as well as the budget constraints set by the client. Since the early 2000s, a new method — crowdsourcing — has emerged.

This approach involves engaging an unlimited number of people in the joint implementation of projects. In simple terms, crowdsourcing is the creation of a product through "mass participation."

In this article, we will explore in detail what this concept means, the advantages and unique aspects of this approach, provide crowdsourcing examples, and examine how the method can be applied in marketing.

What is crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is the process of completing tasks for a project by various people who are not regular employees or contractors of the business (the client). These tasks may be performed voluntarily or for a small fee. The word crowdsourcing is a combination of two terms: crowd and sourcing, reflecting the philosophy of leveraging collective intelligence.

The process involves a client (a business) who makes project tasks accessible on a specialized platform or their own resources and invites participants to solve them. Participants complete the tasks and provide solutions.

Crowdsourcing is used for:

• product development;
• generating ideas for business and marketing;
• conducting marketing research;
• testing products;
• creating content.

This concept differs from outsourcing, which involves hiring external specialists to solve tasks under a contract and for payment. It is also distinct from crowdfunding, which involves raising funds for a project without participation in its execution.

The significance of crowdsourcing globally

Digitalization and crowdsourcing

The concept of crowdsourcing emerged during the era when the world entered an active phase of digitalization in the early 21st century. Although similar principles had been applied throughout history, any pre-digital examples of crowdsourcing lacked the resources for large-scale communication, making widespread implementation impossible. Today, hundreds or even thousands of people can be engaged to generate ideas.

Digitalization has enabled the practical application of crowdsourcing for generating ideas. Today, this method is used by a variety of organizations worldwide, including private companies, political entities, and commercial institutions.

Advantages of crowdsourcing

The method of involving a broad range of people in a project offers the following benefits:

• Fresh and unexpected ideas for creating, improving, and promoting a product. The more options are considered, the greater the chance of receiving original suggestions.
• Cost savings in product development, as participants may contribute out of enthusiasm. In contrast, outsourcing teams always require payment.
• Enhancements to existing products, boosting their competitiveness and, as a result, increasing sales.
• Faster task completion. A group of people can complete tasks more quickly than a single employee.
• Improved brand image and reputation. Engaging an audience by seeking their opinions builds trust.
• Broader audience reach and geographic distribution of the product. Crowdsourcing participants from different regions and countries may become potential customers, thanks to the online nature of these projects.
• Talent discovery. Creators of the best ideas and solutions can be invited to join the company as permanent employees.

Principles of Crowdsourcing

To implement a project through crowdsourcing effectively, it is essential to follow these principles:

Technologies for crowdsourcing

Global crowdsourcing has become possible thanks to the development of IT technologies, which have made this approach accessible to millions of people. Additionally, data processing capabilities obtained through this method are also evolving.

Which IT capabilities facilitate crowdsourcing:

In the future, AI could match tasks to crowdsourcing participants by aligning assignments with their skills. It could also oversee the quality of completed work.

Crowdsourcing platforms

Crowdsourcing typically involves dedicated platforms where clients post their tasks. The process then includes selecting performers and evaluating the results after completion. Large companies sometimes create their own resources. Let’s look at some popular crowdsourcing platforms.

GitHub

A resource for finding collaborative ideas and solutions as well as testing IT projects. Developers upload elements of source code, icons, and images for their projects into specific folders (repositories). Other users can submit commits — changes made in a separate branch (a copy of the repository). Additionally, the project owner has access to all edits and comments. Users can also propose their ideas for changes through pull requests.

CrowdFlower

GoDesigner

A crowdsourcing platform for organizing contests for designers and other creative professionals. The client describes the idea and sets reward options. Participants submit their concepts, and the best one is chosen. Further discussions and refinements take place directly with the creator.

Mechanical Turk

A marketplace for completing a wide variety of tasks, from data verification and research to content moderation and participation in surveys. The platform adheres to crowdsourcing principles by breaking down project tasks into smaller parts and allowing people worldwide to participate, ensuring scalability.

HeroX

A crowdsourcing service that enables the launch of competitions to address various challenges across a wide audience. Requests can range from product development and innovations to social and environmental issues. The platform offers tools for creating and managing competitions, as well as a feature for awarding prizes.

Crowdsourcing for Marketing

Marketers use crowdsourcing to address a variety of tasks:

How to implement crowdsourcing in marketing and other projects

Crowdsourcing projects can be launched independently through your own resources (suitable for large companies with significant budgets) or using specialized platforms, as discussed earlier.

How to launch a crowdsourcing campaign:

1. Define the goal. Determine the tasks that need to be addressed and the deadlines. Crowdsourcing can be a one-time project or an ongoing process, such as when content moderation or data processing is a continuous requirement for the business.
2. Set audience parameters. Identify the target group who will complete the tasks, as well as the required number of participants, which can be crucial for certain objectives. For example, marketing research results are only relevant when a sufficient number of respondents are surveyed.
3. Choose the format of the crowdsourcing campaign. Decide whether the campaign will involve task assignments, surveys, contests, or other forms.
4. Prepare project materials and provide clear instructions. Clearly describe what participants are expected to do and explain why their contribution is important.
5. Outline incentives for participants. Motivations can range from appealing to users’ desire to help improve a product, offering gifts, or providing monetary rewards, depending on the complexity of the tasks.
6. Publish your assignments on the chosen platform and collect the results.

Summary

Crowdsourcing involves delegating certain project tasks to external individuals either without payment or for modest compensation. This method has been actively evolving in the digital age as it expands opportunities for generating new ideas, testing and improving products, creating content, increasing audience engagement, and saving budgets on employee wages. People’s participation in online projects provides access to collective intelligence, which has proven to be highly effective.

Crowdsourcing leverages cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, enhancing task performance outcomes and accelerating information processing. To engage participants in crowdsourcing projects, companies use their own resources or specialized platforms such as GitHub, CrowdFlower, Mechanical Turk, HeroX, and others.

For marketers, working with external specialists involves generating new ideas, studying the audience, creating content, and testing hypotheses. To successfully run a crowdsourcing project, it is important to define its goal and the target audience to attract. It is also necessary to clearly explain what needs to be done and motivate participants to complete the tasks at hand.