[Crowd Leader: Shelley Kuipers] Crowdsourcing and Finding Your Prosumers

There are a couple of different definitions for the term “prosumer.” One of the most frequently used definitions of a prosumer is a consumer who desires a level of service that is typically only demanded by professionals, or someone who plays a role that is typically filled by a professional. For example, you hear about “prosumer bloggers” who may be movie reviewers and gain a large readership even though they are not “professionals”.

However, a perhaps less-used definition is actually the original one, coined by Alvin Toffler back in 1980, who first identified a prosumer as one who is highly interested in a particular product, service or brand, and wants to become involved with it to help fashion its future. In other words – a “proactive consumer”.

It is Alvin Toffler’s definition of “prosumer” that is highly relevant to crowdsourcing as it enables the identification of these individuals, who can be immensely valuable to any organization. Prosumers are often word-of-mouth powerhouses that can influence a large number of people and therefore promote your product, service or cause.  They are also consumers or advocates who can become actively involved in the design or production of a good or service, or simply raise awareness of a movement by helping to shape its impact regionally, or globally.

So how does this all fit into crowdsourcing?  Crowdsourcing is perhaps the most effective way to identify the prosumers, to bring them into your brand (or cause) and give them a meaningful way to engage, contribute and grow their relationship with you. Crowdsourcing can also provide a way to bring prosumers together with other prosumers and engage on innovation and co-creation initiatives. Prosumers can be hidden assets for any organization, but through crowdsourcing you can make them known to your company, and begin to build lasting, highly productive and mutually rewarding relationships.

What can prosumers do for you?

Prosumers can contribute in three major ways to your organization: through abundant feedback and input, insightful conversations in consumer groups focused around brands and ideas, and ultimately, co-creation and open innovation.  Therefore prosumers will touch three key aspects of your business: market research, brand and innovation; and successful crowdsourcing programs do just that, enable any form of contribution from the crowd through microtasks to hands on co-creation.

Prosumers are most insightful in co-creation by providing real-life feedback in testing new concepts before rolling them out to the market. Prosumers can also raise awareness or elevate a cause in their network and are motivated more by the bond with your organization than they are by awards or external incentives. We often give prosumers a special role in our crowdsourcing programs – by inviting them into private areas for hands-on innovation or acknowledging them through brand affiliated reputation and/or influence.

Our team has aspirations for some of the brands we touch every day, like RIM, Air Canada, Rogers, Shaw, and HSBC as they have so much to gain from their prosumers that are just waiting to be invited in.  We’d love to help them to build their communities or make their brands participative.

As for the rest of you, take a step — a bold step – and extend an invitation to your consumers both current and future via social channels, mobile and web-enabled engagement; capture all that they are trying very hard to contribute, and remember to acknowledge and reward them.  There is no better investment for your brand, products, services or cause – we’ll see many cases studies of ROI very soon.