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How to Start a Movement using Crowdsourcing

BY GREAT2BNATE | 3 min read

This article was originally posted on Social Media Today

We live in a world of seemingly endless political, social, and altruistic causes, each with it’s own call to action or reason for being the most important issue of our time. In all this noise, how does a person decide what to believe?  From the other side of the equation, it may seem like an impossible task to rally people around yet another thing. Human attention has become one of the most valuable commodities out there, so where does someone looking to harness it via crowdsourcing even begin? 

Derek Sivers gave a well-known TED Talk in 2010 called “How to Start a Movement” in which he breaks down the basic flow of energy that launches an organic following. The lead domino? Great leadership. Here’s a snippet from the TED Talk itself:


“First, of course you know, a leader needs the guts to stand out and be ridiculed. What he's doing is so easy to follow.Here's his first follower with a crucial role; he's going to show everyone else how to follow.

Now, notice that the leader embraces him as an equal. Now it's not about the leader anymore; it's about them, plural. Now, there he is calling to his friends. Now, if you notice that the first follower is actually an underestimated form of leadership in itself. It takes guts to stand out like that. The first follower is what transforms a lone nut into a leader.”

And here comes a second follower. Now it's not a lone nut, it's not two nuts — three is a crowd, and a crowd is news. So a movement must be public.

It's important to show not just the leader, but the followers, because you find that new followers emulate the followers, not the leader.

Now, here come two more people, and immediately after, three more people. Now we've got momentum. This is the tipping point. Now we've got a movement.”

 

Siver makes it sounds beautifully simple. And in some ways, it is: a strong leader attracts strong followers, which multiply themselves accordingly, and so on.  But, when you’re faced with the task of being that leader, you might have a few questions. Here are seven easy-to-digest steps in getting your leadership legs under you, so to speak, and start that movement -- using crowdsourcing.

Step 1: Know Your Movement

The first step is to identify who it is you want to take action and what action you want them to take.

“Hey Everyone! Let's do something!” is not going to get anyone moving.

“Hey Moms! Get up early and get walking on a weekly ‘mom walk'!” is a way more compelling war cry. Now I obviously know you don't want me in that movement, but I know lots of moms who would be interested and will gladly pass information on!

Step 2: Get Educated

What would be the concerns about people starting the movement? Are there legalities you need to be aware of? What questions might a media mogul ask when interviewing you about the movement? The historical evolution of the movement, scientific evidence, tid bits of “gee-whiz” trivia are a few things you might want to have in your utility belt. “Research has shown that petting a puppy at least 3 times a week improves positivity in people by 50%*” sounds better than “I was petting my dog and just thought, it would be cool if other people could pet dogs too!” (*not actual data, I made that stuff up. But please use actual data as people will call you out on it and you will look like a fool.)

Step 3: Make it popular

Want to know what's popular… go to any newspaper or news website and see what is on the front page. Do you visualize your movement following along the lines of those stories? Popular topics that get people moving:

  • Kids
  • Animals
  • World Peace
  • Celebrities in trouble
  • Diseases
  • The Bizarre/Funny
  • Politics
  • Sports/health/fitness
  • Environmental destruction

Step 4: Rally the troops

Now you need to let people know about your movement! E-mail those you know who will be interested, reach out to your social network, post on your blog, contact like-minded groups and organizations and let them know. Provide information about your movement, which you came up with in step 1. Sprinkle in some factual tidbits, which you researched in step 2. And if you are moving on a popular topic, like in step 3, there will be no reason the troops (at least some troops) won't rally behind you.

Step 5: Set up communication

Create a point of communication and encourage people to participate. This is easier than ever! If you don't have a website or blog for people to come to, you can set up a facebook group, yahoo group, ning.com community, and the list goes on and on and on. Just make it ease to participate and encourage people to contribute. No matter how smart you think you are, there will always be this one question to answer: How do we make this better? Let others take a stab and build upon your movement.

Step 6: Get Noticed

Once you have your troops together and communication set up, the movement is on its way. Reach out to the press, your political leaders, the world, and let them know that the movement has started. The Blog-sphere has become the first point of news and you might already find your movement is spinning just in reaching out in step 4. Don't get comfortable with that, keep the ball moving by letting influential people know that your movement is growing and that they will want to pay attention!

Step 7: Take it easy

Know that people are imperfect and will get discouraged. As the leader of this new movement, do not be too rigid in the requirements. Be understanding and provide encouragement, better yet, encourage others to encourage each other.  This will act as a force multiplier for good, and build a healthy morale for your movement  


by Nathan McGee

 

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