photo by brainflakes.org

What does “New Media” mean to you? Where do you see Social Media, Blogging, and the Web 2.0 world heading next? For me, “New Media” is about allowing anyone and everyone to create this media themselves, encouraging creativity, and providing low barriers of entry (so everyone – regardless of tech-know-how – can participate).

Recently I launched a project called “The Epiphany Moment” – what took several months together has resulted in something that truly defines what “New Media” means to me. Every element of this was 100% crowd-sourced – individuals submitted their own videos to be a part of this, which were then edited and set to original music – all of which was done at zero cost.

Here are some “pointers” when it comes to crowd-sourcing your future projects:

Provide a platform

A goal of mine since day one was to provide a platform for conversation and collaboration – to create something that truly facilitated discussion and got everyone involved because well, by myself, I’m not all that interesting. Everyone has different goals with their online presence, blogs, etc – and the whole community building thing isn’t for everyone. But more and more I am seeing “community” themed projects popping up – ebooks, guest post series, video series, you name it. That’s what “New Media” needs – more people like you and I to provide a platform so this collaboration can exist and continue to evolve.

Provide the tools

No one will participate it they don’t have the means to do so. Part of getting strong involvement from your community is to provide them with the tools to succeed, and to make yourself available to assist, answer questions, etc. Don’t leave people in the dark, be there to hand hold and encourage when neccesary – it’ll result in a much happier population of people over the long run.

Make it easy

The most important thing is to lower the barriers of entry and make it easy for everyone to participate. Going back to my “Epiphany Moment” project – it’s set up so that in the future, people can add their own video submissions with a click of the mouse, directly from Youtube. This makes it extremely easy for everyone, even those who are not as “tech-savvy” to fire up their webcams and be a part of the collaborative effort. Keep your audience and community in mind when you’re laying setting things up to make sure it’s as easy as possible for everyone.

Encourage future participation

New Media has no end in sight – when you’re working on your project – keep the future in mind – you don’t neccesarily have to create something that is finite – instead, consider the future participation and how you can keep your project active and thriving in the future. Create a platform for collaboration, plant seeds, and then watch them grow and flourish.

Matt Cheuvront is the mastermind behind Life Without Pants. Take the next step by saying hello on Twitter and subscribing to his blog today!

Tags: Blogging, content creation, Matt Cheuvront, relationships, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy