People are indeed amazing. When you ask people for their ideas, it is awe-inspiring what people can and will do. But first you have to ask! After pushing Zero Strategist site out of alpha (initial development phase) and into beta (testing/feedback phase) we made the decision to crowd source feedback to the social web/twitter-sphere asking for open criticism and feedback about the web presence design. The objective was to make the site design the best it could be. Period!

Thanks Everyone!

A real estate agent from Ohio took the time out of her day to send me a detailed email telling us how she thought I could improve usability of the site. A web developer from Austin Texas gave us some radical javascript optimization tips. A nonprofit guru out of the U.K. hooked us up with some hot English revisions (no pun intended). An executive from Washington D.C. gave us his take on color schemes, tag clouds, and shared with me his decision making logic on why he would or wouldn’t hire an independent consultant based on certain aspects of their web presences. A socially minded educator and project manager from Maryland told us that the colors were not at all what she had expected, but it the best website design she had seen in some time. A Q/A tester from Woodbridge VA told us that she just wanted to see even more content. Peers and colleagues cheered us on. As a result of crowdsourcing the feedback of this web presence re-design, we received 32 pieces of meaningful information. All of these observations and suggestions were critical to improving our web presence.

ROI of Social Media, You Are Looking At It

No one individual, company, agency, organization, internet marketer or team could give me this much insight into how to improve the initial design Zero Strategist web presence as the crowd did. For those who keep clambering for proof of SoMe ROI, here it is you are looking at it…literally.

Crowdsourcing is Great, But Not Always 100% Effective

Though ZS receive some completely awesome insights into the design from crowdsourcing, two significant design/function/usability errors were identified by our own team and were not mentioned by the crowd. This is why there is no social media substitute for a highly skilled, capable and trusted team (large or small) of highly motivated individuals. It is important to keep social media tactics like crowd sourcing in perspective as one part of a larger strategy, not as the sole solution.

Case Study Metrics

Case Study: Zero Strategist.com Complete Website Redesign from a personal Social Media blog into a Social Media Consulting Site
Social Media Strategy: Crowdsourcing Web Presence Design Feedback
Time Frame: Two Weeks
Reach/Distribution: 800+ people on twitter/email/phone
Number of Respondents/Engagements: 11
Number of Actionable Suggestions: 25
Number of Criticisms: 3
Number of Compliments: 6
Implementation Time: 6 hours of development/tweeks drawn out over 1.5 weeks
Cost of Implementation: $0
Number of Implemented Design Changes: 19
Number of Vetoed Design Suggestions: 4
Number of Content Changes: 2

1% Is All You Need

So what if only 1% of people responded? When it comes to crowd sourcing all you need is 1% meaningful response to make a significant impact. We still got great feedback and were able to push the site to the next level. This is how social media can help you meet an objective (excellent design). It is not about what you want to hear — it is about real people telling you what you need to hear in order to completely rock. Most important of all, we received overwhelming positive responses: people liked it in general. Once again, thank you everyone who took the time to respond, it made a difference in the future direction of Zero Strategist.