Crowdsourcing Effort in Airbnb Company

Crowdsourcing is a social media sourcing model where organizations or individuals get goods and services. This term was initially coined by a writer named Jeff Howe in 2006. He described it as a way of businesses tapping into the power of the crowd instead of carrying out the tasks. It includes micro-tasks, voting, ideas, and finances from a large group of participants, which is open and rapidly evolving. As of 2021, it means the use internet to attract and divide work among participants to attain the cumulative outcome. Advantages associated with this effort include speed, flexibility, diversity, and improved costs. Many crowdsourcing methods like virtual labor markets, open online collaboration, and competitions. It helps organizations to learn beyond what is provided by employees.

There are several examples of outsourcing efforts that have been successful. Such an example is Airbnb, a company based in the United States; it does its operations as an online marketplace that helps people rent lodging places that are affordable to them. The range of dwellings is hotel rooms, hostel beds, and holiday cottages. In 2013, the company faced a challenge due to a lawsuit of a trademark infringement from the company's competitor. This was the need for having the outsourcing effort (Kohler 70). The company, therefore, came up with a marketing strategy of carrying out campaigns to embed the concept for the creation of excitement relating to the brand.

The concept made use of the generated content by the user. Airbnb company launched the crowdsourcing campaign's first video on Vine (Zimmermann). The videos were combined through a series of submitted users, and a short film was created, referred to as ''Hollywood and Vines.'' The primary premise of this film was making adventures and traveling around the world. Approximately one hundred videos among the six-second clips were chosen to make the four-and-a-half-minute video. The campaign's development was alongside the company's sponsorship...…filtered out, and crowdsourcing became the only viable idea.

The results were that the campaigns had a good impact because, through the contests open for two weeks, nearly nine hundred and fifty videos had their tags in the Airbnb hashtag (Palacios et al.). The use of Instagram for the campaign meant that the brand could receive a windfall of the video and bonanza from social media due to the high penetration of the hashtag. Scott Allen Perry was announced the winner of this contest who therefore got a flight to London that was complementary. The winner had many followers on all the social media accounts. He resided there for a week and received a ticket to the Sundance Film Festival.

In conclusion, Airbnb Company is one of the examples that used crowdsourcing effort as a marketing strategy. Through social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, their hosts posted videos many people viewed. Through the contests where the winner would be rewarded, the company made…