Social media has changed the way businesses engage with consumers—fans and followers don’t want to be told, they want to discover. It’s no longer a one-way (or even a two-way) conversation.

It’s now a multiplayer experience that relies on collective, thoughtful engagement.

Consumers have the tools, time and desire to be involved on a much deeper level than we’ve ever seen before. There are several distinct ways that you can take these ideas and build social media campaigns that use existing tools and technologies to achieve powerful results.

Today, brands big and small are homing in on the tactic of crowdsourcing, defined as the act of outsourcing tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “crowd”), through an open call. Hidden within this utilitarian definition are powerful cultural drivers that can be catalyzed to achieve powerful social engagement and activation.

What’s the benefit of crowdsourcing?

As the evolving relationship between consumers and brands brings everyone closer together, interactions and relations will continue to become more and more complimentary each time, giving and taking equally and fairly. You can turn consumers into brand advocates by getting them involved and engaged.

It’s at the intersection of these ideas where a powerful and new way to socially activate and engage consumers exists. It’s time to get your consumers talking—so connect with your crowd when you’re using social media.

Alex Bogusky and John Winsor wrote in their book Baked In about organizational intelligence, saying, “The intelligence of the whole can differ wildly based on who is connected and to whom and how.” By extension, we can say that if a company is disconnected from its consumers, the organizational IQ suffers.

Open up your social media sites to the input and feedback of your "crowd." Image source: http://www.istockphoto.com/

Below are three principles of crowdsourcing that can be used on or in tandem with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs.

#1: Ask for feedback (then do something with it)

Your business might say, “We listen to our customers, and your feedback is always welcome.” Well, that’s great, and listening is the first step, but without follow-up action, you’ll leave your customers feeling short-changed. The gap between satisfied and disappointed is easily closed, yet it’s often left wide open. This is a wasted opportunity.

Asking open-ended questions on your social media sites is a way to not only close the gap, but also create a program that turns the act of collecting and reacting to feedback into a marketing campaign of activation and engagement.

Biore Skincare asks their consumers questions to facilitate a conversation.

For example, ask fans when or why they first had a need for your product or service. You’ve not only connected with your online audience, but also gained valuable insight into the thought process of your constituents.

Starbucks executed this idea of using consumer feedback with “My Starbucks Idea.”

Starbucks fans can share, vote, discuss and see ideas on My Starbucks Idea.

The site allows users to submit suggestions to be voted on by Starbucks’ consumers, and the most popular suggestions are highlighted and reviewed. Starbucks then took it a step further and added an “Ideas in Action” blog that gives updates to users on the status of changes suggested.

#2: Create contests and giveaways

People love winning, and when they win prizes or discounts, they’ll share the news with their friends. Consider implementing trivia promotions and offering reduced-price or free products or services as prizes to fans who identify the correct answer first. Using a contest application can give you everything you need to implement and manage a campaign.

One thing you want to be sure of is your ability to capture contact information for participants. Getting users’ contact information allows you to plan for a post-event promotion. You’ll know the participants have your brand top of mind at the end of your event, so having a special promotion ready to offer immediately following the event while you have the attention of the participants is critical.

You also want to be sure the platform you choose has all the social media sharing tools built in so participants can use Facebook and Twitter to let their social networks know about the contest. After all, turning participants into promoters is one of the main reasons to run a crowdsourcing campaign in the first place.

For example, create contests with a seasonal twist to get people talking, like a costume photo contest for your consumers and fans during Halloween. A brand that executed this concept is Graco baby products. They implemented a Halloween Costume Contest in 2010 on the brand’s Flickr page and gave away a sound machine to the winner as an incentive for fans to participate.

Here's a promotion where people sent their child's cutest Halloween photo.

Another great big-brand example of crowdsourcing with social media is Dunkin Donuts. DD created the “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contest in 2010. The contest was a huge success, generating more than 130,000 donut submissions and 174,000 votes.

Dunkin Donuts asked fans to design the next donut.

#3: Poll or survey your fans

Consumers love to give their opinion. They want to share their ideas, feelings and opinions in a quick, easy way that makes them feel like they’re connecting with a brand. You can poll fans on anything; it makes them feel like their ideas, thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

Facebook Questions lets you submit an open-ended question and create custom multiple-choice polls.

For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, consider polling fans on what seasonal dish they would like to see for the upcoming summer season. Polling or surveying fans and followers is the fastest way to structure an active conversation on a topic that you encourage.

Whether you’re collecting user feedback, running crowdsourcing contests or polling your audience, you’ll benefit greatly from making these types of campaigns recurring fixtures in your business’s social media strategy.

While participation may not be where you’d like it for the first attempt, by repeating the programs on a regular basis, you’ll condition your community to anticipate what’s coming next and this will cause a steady increase in participation. So don’t give up in the beginning. Trust that you have a clear understanding of the behaviors you’re trying to solicit and that your community is eager to participate.

Resources

In this video interview you can learn how to turn your customers into raving fans and you can also read here how to use Twitter to connect with local customers.

Are you connecting with your crowd? What ideas or suggestions do you have? Leave your comments in the box below.

Photo from iStockPhoto.

What’s New This Week?

MeetUp Launches Perks Feature for Small Businesses: MeetUp makes it easy for people to get together, and now with MeetUp Perks, businesses can “easily offer membership Perks to MeetUp groups in a simple, self-serve way” and become their sponsors.   “MeetUp Perks is not a daily deal or a coupon service.” They hope to help businesses “find local community they can support for a long time.”  Find out more here.  This looks interesting.  What do you think?

MeetUp Perks costs $5 per month for each MeetUp group you sponsor and you only pay for groups that accept your Perks.

Twitter Announces Services in Korean: Twitter is now available in 7  languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean) and continues to develop its services to its large international audience.

With 70% of its users outside the U.S., Twitter needs to adapt its services for other markets too.

Eyeka Launches in the U.S., so Big Brands Can Crowd-source Creative Feedback:  Eyeka is a consumer engagement community for brands and agencies. What do you think about Eyeka?

On Eyeka, consumers give feedback for free to brands and agencies.

Here are two recent studies to note:

eMarketer Predicts U.S. Marketers Will Spend $3.08 billion on Social Media Advertising This Year: This follows the trend as Facebook ad revenues more than doubled last year.  This is something marketers should be aware of this year.

MarketsandMarkets Says World Mobile Applications Market Worth $25 Billion (U.S.) by 2015: The mobile app market continues to grow. Does your business have a mobile marketing plan?

Here’s one more new social media tool worth a look:

Urtak: This is a simple tool to ask your audience Yes/No questions. It’s easy to add to your website to learn more about your audience and you can also use it on Facebook. Try it out here: Social Media News

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner’s Blogging Success Summit 2011: Starting February 1, this online mega-conference will help you use your blog for business and profit.

What social media news caught your interest? What do you think of the other news items this week? Please share your comments below.

But, if you build it, will they come? And if they come, will they stay and engage?

There are two primary components to Facebook fan page engagement: 1) Sharing quality, relevant content and 2) inciting comments.  In this article I’ll tell you how to best engage with Facebook fans.

Of course, there are many other components of effective Facebook fan pages and Facebook marketing in general. However, for the purposes of this two-part post, we’ll focus on content and comments. The more comments you have, the more viral visibility and free marketing you’ll create. But your fans have to have something to comment on!

Share Quality, Relevant Content – Daily

TechCrunch recently posted a Facebook fan page study by Sysomos that revealed 77 percent of fan pages have fewer than 1,000 fans. What stood out for me in that post was this fact: “Facebook fan pages tend to be updated only once every 16 days.”

TechCrunch goes on to say, “On Twitter, you follow someone because you want to hear what they have to say. On Facebook, you fan them just to show your support or affinity. Too often, it’s a throwaway gesture.”

While this may be true for many Facebook members and fan pages, I see a lively fan page as an extension of your blog and business – a place where you can generate real community and further solidify your brand.

1) How Often Should You Post?

• For most fan pages, there is a direct correlation between frequency of posts and number of fans. Frequency is king, but there’s a fine balance – you don’t want to overwhelm your fans.
• If you’re just starting out with your fan page, I would suggest a minimum of one update per day and increase from there to several times a day (mixing up the types of posts – see below) if you’re getting a good response from your fans.
• Daily posting (at least Monday through Saturday) should yield daily comments and engagement.
• You’ll find the right rhythm with your fans. Better to start with once a day than several times a day and have your wall filled with only your own posts.
• Also, keep in mind “high traffic windows.” Depending on your time zone and the time zone of the majority of your fans, you’ll probably want to post sometime between 8:15am PST and 2:00pm PST.

2) What to Post

• I recommend a mix of your own thoughts, breaking news, useful tips, tools, resources and links from other sites in your industry and related industries. Stay on topic, stay focused.
• You could create an editorial calendar for your fan page just like many bloggers do.
• If you’re not sure what content your fans want, ask them – in a poll or status update.
• If your fan base is small and still growing, ask your Twitter followers, Facebook friends, email list, and blog subscribers. They are all potential fans. (See related post: 5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page).

In this screen shot of Volkswagen’s Facebook Fan Page, photos from a recent auto show yielded 363 likes and 68 comments and a video trailer got 121 likes and 25 comments. These are great results, as every one of the fan actions created a post on their respective walls and out into their friends’ news feeds. Free visibility, and every line item has a link back to VW’s fan page.

3) Sourcing Quality Content

• Your own blog: Import using the Notes app or, ideally, the Networked Blogs app.
• Create your own Alltop page and review each morning for fresh content to share.
• And/or subscribe to the top 15 to 25 blogs in your industry and related industries in your Google reader and review daily.
• Create Twitter lists and scan daily for new, relevant information to share (see also 5 Creative Ways to Use Your Twitter Favorites).
• Your Twitter Favorites RSS feed imported via the Notes app.
• Your YouTube videos and/or other relevant videos.

4) Cultivating Your Style

• Most people will come back to your fan page if there’s a real sense of community.
• It’s important to be open, inviting, warm, friendly and personable. Even if you’re a large brand.
• Starbucks leads the way with engagement – you might observe their style for ideas. Though they use their globally recognized logo, you’ll occasionally see posts in first person. I think this is commendable, as it really creates that personal feel so important to social networks.

5) Mix Up the Types of Posts

Text

This is your standard status update. You get 420 characters in the publisher to say what you want. As long as you don’t have a link in the update, the post automatically changes your latest Status Update at the top.

I highly recommend using the Facebook fan page to Twitter app at http://facebook.com/twitter. You simply link your fan page to your Twitter account, then choose which posts to share as tweets (Status Updates, Photos, Links, Notes, Events). You may need to experiment to get this just right.

Your posts will automatically truncate at around 120 characters and include a bit.ly link back to your fan page. Regardless of the number of characters, the tweet always contains the bit.ly link. Here’s an example of an update I posted for this blog post:

To track stats on any bit.ly link, just paste it into your browser and add a “+” sign at the end. As of the time of this writing, this post/link had 109 clicks and the post had 23 comments, plus replies on Twitter.

Video

Video is the next best thing to meeting your fans in person. There are many choices for video updates: You talking into the camera, photo montages (try Animoto), screencasts (using software like Camtasia Studio for PC or Mac, or ScreenFlow for Mac).

When you talk into the camera, always make good eye contact with the camera lens – just as if you were chatting to one good friend. You could do a video tip per day or per week. Make sure to keep the length short and the content concise. The ideal length for videos is up to 1 minute and 40 seconds.

You can record directly on Facebook or load a file onto your fan page – see screenshots below:

Here’s a video upload example from Dell Computer’s Facebook Fan Page – a 41-second ad for their nifty new customizable range of laptops, with 179 likes and 57 comments.

Or, you could pull in the video from YouTube as a link (click the Links icon on the publisher) – and this pulls in the live video player just as if you’d loaded the video file as in the example above:

Photos

Upload relevant pictures periodically and be sure to encourage your fans to upload photos anytime they wish. Each time your fans upload a photo, the thumbnail goes onto their profile wall and out into the news feeds of their friends.

Make sure your settings allow fans to post content. Just to the right under the publisher, click Options, then Settings:

In the screenshot below, there’s a photo on the Coca-Cola Facebook Fan Page – what’s neat about this photo is it was actually a fan-loaded image that Coca-Cola then reposted using the Share button (a great illustration of how Coca-Cola partnered with their raving fans who created the page).

Links

• Anytime you post a link in the publisher, Facebook displays a preview with a choice of thumbnails. (If you’re publishing content from a third-party app like Ping.fm, the thumbnail will be a default view.)
• You may at times wish to create an actual status update with a link in it, instead of a link with the preview on the wall. Here’s what to do: Before clicking the Share button, simply click the “x” to delete the link preview:

The post goes out as a status update with a clickable link:

Events

You can quickly create Event listings right from the publisher for any virtual or live event you have coming up. Fans can easily RSVP, as a regular Event page is created when you publish the event.

@ tags

This is a relatively new feature on Facebook. You can tag any friend, any fan page you’ve joined, any group you’re a member of and any event you’ve RSVPed to attend. You can include up to six @ tags in any update. Use the @ tagging strategically and your post will show up on your friends’ walls and other fan pages’ walls per the tag. (Just type the @ symbol in the publisher and the first letter or two of who/what you want to tag and a list drops down for you to select from.)

Notes app

This app is typically used to import your blog. However, I like the Networked Blogs app, so I actually import the RSS feed of my Twitter Favorites via the Notes app, which makes it easy to push relevant, regular content onto my fan page wall (and into the news feeds of my fans).

Incite Comments

Now that you have a wide variety of regular, quality, relevant content posting on your fan page, here are some points about inciting comments:

• For status updates, try ending with a question.
• Add your own comments as needed to get the ball rolling.
• Come back and reply often to your fans’ comments – Facebook currently doesn’t have threaded commenting, so I suggest addressing specific fans in your comments as @name.
• Do your best to respond to fan questions as promptly as possible. If you find you can’t keep up with the volume of questions, offer a free teleseminar or webinar in which you answer your fans’ top questions.

Vin Diesel has the second most popular Facebook fan page with well over seven million fans. Vin doesn’t post all that often, but when he does, each post yields tens of thousands of comments and likes. Just like Starbucks, there’s something to learn from Vin’s style – he talks to his fans in a very warm, caring and authentic manner.

In part two of this Facebook Fan Page Engagement post, I’ll cover:

1. How to encourage fans to keep coming back to add their own content and comments and ask questions, etc.
2. Monitoring insights – what do they mean, how to analyze the numbers and adjust your posts accordingly.
3. Should you also use the “Send an Update to Fans” feature? Do fans read their updates?
4. How to spark ongoing engagement via the Discussions tab.
5. Setting up systems for monitoring and responding to your fan engagement, given that there are currently no notifications of activity or RSS feeds to subscribe to on fan pages.
6. Integrating your Twitter followers and activity into your fan page engagement.

Editors note: Check out Social Media Examiner’s new Facebook fan page by clicking here.

Now it’s your turn: What types of content are you finding sparks the most engagement on your Facebook fan page? Where do you get stuck most with your fan page and what else would you like to see covered in future posts about social media engagement? Please add your thoughts in the comments below, then stay tuned for part two!

This article will provide you unique ideas that will help you keep pumping out great content.

The following 13 content ideas are designed to help save you time and stimulate some new ideas.

By the way, if you’re following the blogging basics outlined here, you’re well on your way to creating and maintaining the kind of content that will keep readers coming back for more.

And if you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you know that when you don’t post on your blog for a few days, your traffic takes a nosedive.

Here’s ideas to get you going.

1. Set up Google Alerts

With Google Alerts, you can set up alerts for topics and subtopics in your niche to see what’s making news and what’s being said by others. Monitoring online news and conversations can inspire ideas and introduce you to new content sources.

2. Search Blog Directories

In the context of blog outreach, I mentioned Technorati and Alltop in my article on The Secret to Growing Your Blog Following. Both sites are also great sources for finding what other bloggers are posting about your topic. When you’re stuck, do a keyword search on Technorati. Set up a channel on Alltop with blogs in your industry to scan what’s new at a glance.

3. Subscribe to blogs

Monitor blogs in your field by subscribing to influential blogs by email or subscribe to blog feeds with your preferred feed reader.

You want to find out what your competitors and other experts in your field are discussing. Not only will you get inspiration for your own writing, but you’ll stay on the cutting edge of your field.

4. Share from other blogs

Other bloggers’ posts are often useful jumping-off points for writing your own. Some bloggers simply report on somebody’s post, link to it, and that’s it. A more strategic way to do this is to either agree with the blogger you’re citing, disagree, or add your own perspective.

Adding to the conversation makes your blog more valuable. Although you can read a lot of good stuff in the blogosphere, it hasn’t all been said. Use the good stuff as inspiration and ask yourself, what can I add to that? The blogosphere loves controversy and a good argument. How can you stir things up and encourage your readers to interact and comment?

5. Post a poll

This is a great tool that can boost readership and encourage people to come back to vote and share with friends. Set up a poll as a blog post or in the sidebar, and ask readers to vote on their biggest challenge, their worst nightmare—you name it—as long as it’s relevant to your topic. What do you want to know from your readers? Ask them.

There are many free polling services that enable you to add polls to your blog: Polldaddy and Vizu are two I frequently use.

Use poll results as fodder for writing additional follow-up blog posts, an article, or a media release.

6. Toot your own horn

Announce your own live events, speaking appearances, products, and services. Any time you have something new going on, let your readers know about it by writing a post for your blog. If you’re writing press releases for your business, post those on your blog as well.

7. Share information

Share information and tips you think might interest readers. Do it in a way that provokes a conversation, rather than reporting on topics as a journalist. This is also an opportunity to ask your readers for their perspective. Remember, an important reason to blog for your business is not just to disseminate information, but also to engage in a conversation with your readers.

8. Make smart use of categories

Take a few minutes to make a list of the main topics you’re blogging about, and then make a list of three or four subtopics. If you think about it, when you’re focused on your reader and your expertise, most of what you’re going to be blogging about falls under five to seven main topics.

Once you’ve got the list, set up a simple editorial calendar. Each day, you can write about a particular subtopic. On Monday, you write about subtopic A. On Wednesday, you write about subtopic B. On Friday you write about subtopic C. This gives you focus for each day of the week, so when that day comes around, you don’t find yourself wondering what to write about.

9. Ask your community

Similar to doing a poll, throw a question out to your communities on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. You’ll probably get an immediate response.

On Twitter:

On Facebook:

10. Invite guest authors

When you don’t have time to write, you can write posts in advance and postdate them so they’re published on the days you’re away. But if you’re really pressed for time, a great way to avoid a gap in blog posts is to ask someone who writes on a similar subject to be a guest author.

This is a win-win-win. 1) The guest blogger writes a few posts while you’re away, giving you content. 2) The guest blogger gets links back to his or her website or blog, as well as exposure to your readers. 3) Your readers get new perspectives on your subject.

11. Grow blog antennae

It sounds funny, but this happens. After you’ve been blogging for a while, you develop blog antennae. You’ll find yourself continually scanning the web, newspapers, magazines, email, and even your own personal experiences for interesting items to blog about.

Expect this to happen after you’ve been blogging for a couple of months. Even the slightest life challenge or mistake can become fodder for great blog posts. But to make that happen, you have to keep your ears and eyes open and receptive. The good news here is that just about any event can make an interesting blog post. Make sure to jot down your ideas and keep a running list. About 90% of my blog ideas never get posted but they serve as great inspiration when I feel at a loss.

12. Write a top-10 list

Here’s a great tip for creating content and building readership and getting links back to your blog: Make a list of your top 10 favorite blogs in your industry.

Generally the people on that list will be excited because they made the list. More than likely, they will write on their blog about you and your list because they’re going to be tooting their own horn: “I just made so-and-so’s list of favorite blogs.” It’s a great way to get known and build readership.

13. Refer to the classics

When writing about nearly anything, your content can be more valuable and unique when you can refer effectively to the classics, history, or authoritative books written about the topic being discussed. Many people in the blogosphere treat content superficially.  How can you place your product or service in historical context? A great example is a post on Copyblogger called 5 Essential Blogging Tips from the Father of Chinese Philosophy.

By adding depth, you add value to your blog. This helps position you as a thought leader and a credible expert in your field.

Now it’s your turn! I would love to add more ideas to my list. Where do you find inspiration for your blog posts? Please share your tips and resources in the comments.