If you haven’t heard, crowdsourcing has already been crowned the next big thing.

Crowdsourcing can refer to a wide range of activities, but in general it is defined as the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, information, or content by soliciting contributions from a large online community. Individuals within the undefined public each contribute at their own initiative to shape a greater end result.

Crowdsourcing is based on the ability to mobilize a vast number of mobile device (smartphone and tablet) users who are communicating with each other across networks and then make sense of the information that is being shared. The volume and scope of the information is vast, as are the number of crowdsourcing apps. All that is needed is access to mobile users – those who want to act and contribute – through an app. The information could be based on what users retrieved via location data, photos or video – or be information obtained about the users themselves.

Businesses make good use of the willingness of online users to discuss and share just about everything. Through analytics of the real-time data, companies draw strategic meaning of the data and develop a “social intelligence” as a basis for their decisions. The end result is that the real-time information contributed by users helps companies engage and interact with them as well as create products and services that meet their needs.

Here’s a look at a few of the basics surrounding crowdsourcing apps:

Gathering Information – The ways in which crowdsourcing apps can be utilized to gather information is nearly limitless, but it is entirely based on shared information. Companies can use apps or social media to solicit opinions and ideas, ask users to rate products or services, engage communities of online experts, offer rewards to users to supply specific content, ask users to input real-time data (such as for news, traffic or weather), and so on.

Using information – The uses for the real-time data collected via crowdsourcing is nearly as limitless. Businesses can analyze the user data to learn about the behaviors and patterns of users, consumer trends, demographics or gain insight into online curators and influencers.  Real-time data solicited from users can create products like Waze, a mapping app that asks its 70,000 users for traffic information, to ones like Outsmart Flu, which tracks flu symptoms via a map, and everything in between.

Creating or tailoring an app – Many of the most popular apps and services are the result of a tremendous amount of effort from developers as well as deep-pocketed investors. However, there are a number of crowdsourced, collaborative platforms that can help developers, like these from Mashable. If you’re not a coder or developer, you can find a crowdsourcing platform to get your app developed or funded.

How to best monetize your video content is a topic that generates a lot of discussion and debate. You have compiled a library of video content, and even a video series or campaign. So now what?

While television is still the main way people access video content, changing viewing habits continue to provide new opportunities for online video content. A Nielson study revealed that nearly 25 percent of videos viewed in high-speed Internet households happen on a screen other than the TV.

So how do you corner that market? While there is no magic formula for generating another line of revenue for your business, there are options. Remember that great content and an engaged audience is valuable. Outside of monetization options on YouTube, what are the best options to drive returns on your video content, and which have the most potential?

Monetize through sponsorships. When a company has a large or loyal audience, or a certain niche, sponsorships can be created through a branded video player or page, or pre-rolls from the same brand. Sponsorships can be created surrounding videos that have already been created.

Pre-roll advertising. One of the easiest – and thus most common – ways to drive income from video content is to sell 15- or 30-second spots preceding the video. You can work with a third party platform for targeted messages.

Video on demand, subscriptions and pay-per-view. There isn’t much evidence out there that users will pay for content created for an online market. But a-la-carte options, like Netflix or Amazon Prime, are gaining traction in place of monthly cable or satellite TV. Think about your premium content and how to deliver it directly to consumers.

License your video content. If you create the right type of video, and it’s high quality, others might pay for the right to use it. Netflix is a great example of this, and other companies may choose to use the training or educational videos you have created rather than incur the cost to produce their own.

Product placement. Just like the tried and true method on TV, other brands – especially those that are complimentary to yours – might be willing to pay to be associated with your high-quality and targeted video content.

Customer service is an aspect of business that most companies can’t afford to get wrong. For many successful companies, customer service is more than just a department, it’s a business philosophy.

The statistics that support the need for great customer service can be astounding. Some research shows that fewer than 10 percent of dissatisfied customers will let you know about it, but 300 percent more people will know about your business from unhappy customers versus satisfied customers.  Basically, an unsatisfied customer will tell everyone they know about a bad experience – at the click of a button – except the company itself.

The lesson is that very few things are more valuable than happy customers, who can become evangelists of your brand, an extension of your marketing efforts and long-term loyal patrons.

Businesses should be doing everything they can to make customers satisfied, and these five tools can help provide great customer service and support.

Live person chats.
Offering customers a live online chat forum with agents is a great way to give free and easy support and avoids the nuisance of a call center. Olark and Live Person are two popular products.

Social media adapters.
Several products enable businesses to identify relevant customer conversations from communities and social media channels and route them to customer service agents. The integration allows inquiries that haven’t been answered in sufficient time to be escalated into wider business operations. Lithium Social Web, Chatter Communities, and Jive are three such products.

Integrated help desks.
A ticketing support system can help manage support requests for companies with a high volume of inquiries. Zendesk is an integrated system that takes customer communications from your website, email, phone, chat or social media platforms and lets you respond from one place.Help Scout and Parature also offer integrated systems.

Peer-to-peer communities.
Discussion forums and communities are great ways to offer support and can benefit both businesses and customers. They enable customers to share information, tips, and best practices with each other without the need to engage customer service agents. The most popular vendors include Rusic, Get Satisfaction and Lithium.

Self-service and tutorials.
Some inquiries and resolutions can be resolved by the customer themselves after they receive some direction. This allows the rest of the customer service system to deal with more serious issues and thus saves money. WalkMe is a popular point-and-click tutorial creation system.

Utilizing online video marketing is one of the most impactful ways for businesses of all sizes to tell the story of their products and services. 

Simply put, video is hot. It’s quickly becoming an integral way users consume content online, making it an effective tool for business. YouTube alone has 154 million monthly viewers and 4 billion views per day, making it the world’s second-largest search engine. Businesses have responded to this trend, and according to eMarketer, 36 percent of U.S. businesses with more than 100 employees use YouTube for marketing purposes. Meanwhile, a staggering 81 percent of senior marketing executives use online video content in their marketing campaigns – up by 70 percent over just two years, per MarketingProfs.

So it makes quite a bit of sense for your business to create online demo or product videos. Not only can such videos help explain your product or service better, they can educate and engage customers, create credibility, differentiate your products, put a face to your brand and increase conversion rates – all of which helps drive sales.

Here’s a look at seven ways in which demo and promo video can benefit your business.

Video is simple and personal. Video is easy content for users to digest versus reading the same message about a brand on a webpage. It also connects with viewers on a deeper and more emotional level.

Multiple touch points for consumers.
One piece of video content can be used across digital and social platforms on multiple channels – on your website and blog plus on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – to create multiple touch points as well as new entry points for consumers.

Levels of product awareness.Video content is ideal for digital and social channels – it’s searchable and sharable – and an outstanding video can go viral. People share video (more than 700 YouTube videos are shared every minute on Twitter), making it the best way to reach a lot of customers quickly for maximum exposure for your message and brand.

A public face for your brand.
Video puts a face to your products and services. It is the fastest way for potential customers to get to know your brand and is a chance to create favor and trust with your company.

Educate potential customers.
Videos play a role within the consumer decision-making process, they are well-suited for explaining complex information, and provide an ideal opportunity to explain or demonstrate a product or service.

Video is mobile, measurable and has a long shelf life.
Not only is video content popular, it now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile online traffic. Analytics can smartly track the success of online video, which is also cost-effective because it can continue to live online and work for you by representing your brand 24/7 over time.

Boost online presence and SEO. New and original content has a significant impact on search engine optimization (SEO), helping you grow and then convert your audience. People are searching online for products and services, and videos routinely rank high in Google search results.

Increase sales conversion rates. Online users are impatient, and you only have a few seconds to reach them. A great demo video will grab attention and create an experience before a call to action at the end.

It’s safe to say that no email marketing campaign starts off with the intent of sending emails that end up in the trash folder. But that’s right where a large number of marketing emails end up due to the same common mistakes.

Any number of mistakes, from those that are simple to avoid to those that show you don’t understand your target audience, can quickly get you red flagged. By sending relevant, engaging and personalized messages at the right time, you’re much more likely to generate interest in your products or services.

If you want to avoid the trash (or worse, the SPAM folder) with your email marketing campaign, here are eight common mistakes to avoid:

Not having permission.
Before investing any resources in an email marketing campaign, start by getting permission from all of your customers. That’s a must. Unsolicited emails not only run the risk of damaging your reputation, but they have a miniscule return on investment compared to the click results and returns on a well-managed campaign.

Sending without testing.
This is an extremely simple mistake to avoid. Simply put, emails look differently depending upon the type of email program and device people use to view them. Don’t assume a test email you send yourself is representative of how it will look to all recipients. If necessary, hire a third party for testing.

Using a personal email address.
This should be obvious, but do not send any type of email marketing campaign from a personal/home email address like Yahoo, Gmail or Hotmail.  Your brand is more valuable than this oversight; at the very least, use an email account from your own domain name.

Sending in a rush.
By simply taking the time to proofread your campaign, you will likely avoid a lot of common mistakes – broken links, bad images, writing mistakes, bad writing – that not only cause people to ignore your marketing email, but could cause them to block you.

Difficult to digest.
This starts with an engaging subject line with the ability to pique interest. Very few people have time to read an entire marketing email, so your content must be easy to scan and digest in a matter of seconds.

The wrong frequency.
Start off by letting your subscribers choose how often (daily, weekly, monthly) they want to hear from you. Take the time to analyze your campaign statistics to review open rates, click rates, and delivery rates to determine what is working best. Don’t scare off potential customers and their business.

No call to action.
Don’t get overly clever and rely on your potential customers to figure out what comes next. Just tell them. Provide the reader with a specific course of action to take and give them a reason to respond.

Being irrelevant.
Don’t assume people know who you are or want to hear from you. Relevance is critical for any email marketing campaign to be successful. Targeted, relevant emails that are personalized show you understand your audience and what they need.