Crowd sourcing a blog post is a good way to interact with your community and gather valuable feedback from them. It makes you look like a thought leader and it shows your community that you care about their needs.
Kelly McCausey of Love People + Make Money used crowd sourcing to create her post, Beat Pricing Stress With These Smart Solopreneurs. The post continues to be popular and still drives plenty of traffic to her website. Here’s how Kelly crowd sourced her post and how you can do the same:
Pick your topic.
Choose something that’s on the minds and hearts of your community. Kelly used pricing stress because she knows a lot of solopreneurs deal with this issue. She was able to gather valuable advice about her topic and show her community that she relates to their struggles.
Set up a form.
Start by setting up a form so you can quickly and easily get responses. Besides asking questions about your topic, you’ll also want to get some personal information from your responders. Ask for your respondent’s name, website URL, and a good headshot. This makes it simple to quote them in your blog post.
Organize the responses.
Kelly asked her friends to submit content and she organized their responses. Keep in mind that it’s OK to get edgy and be real. You can also seek out opposing viewpoints to ensure your content is well-rounded.
But not every response to your survey is going to be valuable to your community. In fact, you may have gotten a response or two that offered bad advice. Remember you don’t have to publish every response, especially if you think it may be harmful to your community.
Make a graphic for the post.
A high quality image makes your blog post more interesting. It also makes it easier to share your content on social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest. You can use a graphic website like Canva to create your post image.
Include a call to action.
Invite your readers to take action after reading your crowd sourced blog post. You can ask them to join your mailing list or share the post. If you want to hear from your community, phrase your call to action as a question, like Kelly did at the bottom of her blog post.
Share it.
Once you’ve published the post, it’s time to promote it. Start by posting it on your own social media channels then contact each person that you featured in your post. Ask them to share it, too. You can even provide some pre-written social media posts if you know your respondents are busy.
Crowd sourcing a blog post can be a fun and easy way to create compelling content. It’s also a great way to highlight issues that your community cares about and provide practical solutions.
Want to be a part of a community where relationships are being cultivated and where some joint ventures have even been born? Check out Momentum Monthly.