Ask anyone. In fact, ask everyone.

One of the most significant benefits of our interconnected digital world is that we now have more access to knowledge than at any other time in history. The answers to nearly every question are at our fingertips. We need only look in the right place.

It’s access that extends far beyond websites and data. Through technology, we can connect with the talents, insights, and creativity of other people—what they know how to do and the ideas they have for doing it. One way of tapping into this creative collective is called “crowdsourcing,” soliciting the “crowd” or a large number of people to either help complete a task or find a solution to a problem.

Crowdsourcing is probably best known as a source of cheap labor—getting a lot of people to do small parts of a larger job or parsing out very small jobs, as is done on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. But it can also be a methodology for finding the specific proficiency you need to address a challenge.

 “What really happens in crowdsourcing as it is practiced in wide variety of contexts, from Wikipedia to open source to scientific research, is that a problem is broadcast to a large number of people with varying forms of expertise,” says Dan Woods, CTO of the Evolved Technologist research firm, in a recent Forbes column. “Then individuals motivated by obsession, competition, money or all three apply their individual talent to creating a solution.”

In other words, it’s more than just a survey or poll. It’s asking your customers or constituents for answers to a legitimate issue and then (important!) actually implementing one or more of those submitted solutions. It gives them a stake in the game and literally makes their efforts a part of your work. 

For example, Dell has a very active IdeaStorm community. Participants submit ideas for innovative technology and the public votes on their concepts. Anything that gets enough votes is developed by Dell technologists. And if it sells, Dell gets the profits: as it says in the Terms of Services, “a posted idea will grant Dell royalty free license to use and implement it without compensation to the originator. Participants should be aware of this before posting any ideas.” Ah ha.

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly followed a similar model for their InnoCentive website as a way to break down the silos of drug research and get them on the market quicker. They even opened up the network of scientists to their competitors, including DuPont and P&G. Any company can post a problem, development issue, or question—and the community of experts can try and solve it.

We’re seeing the idea spread rapidly across the internet. Reporters are tapping into this stream for help with investigative journalism. Web-based sites use it as a source of goods and services, from stock photography to video content for a new Ridley Scott film, Britain in a Day. One woman even used crowdsourcing to name her baby, a technique that she later turned into the Belly Ballot website, where expectant moms can let friends vote on names for their newborn. 

As you can imagine, this kind of broad exposure to a specific target audience makes crowdsourcing an effective tool for public relations, generating interest and prompting engagement in your product or service.

“The payoff to your company will be an increase in customer involvement, loyalty, and perhaps even an insurance policy in case something happens,” says marketing strategist Ivana Taylor in a recent Survey Analytics blog post. “Those who start early and adopt crowdsourcing as a part of how they do business will have already established themselves as an organization who cares and involves their customers.”

It’s an approach that can yield remarkable results. Earlier this year, PR firm Razorfisk created “Mein Burger,” a crowdsourcing campaign for McDonald’s 40^th anniversary in Germany. Via an interactive site, people could create a new burger concept. Within a week, the site racked up 45,000 different entries (330,000 over the full campaign), and more than 1.5 million people voted on their favorites. In total, the site received seven million unique page impressions—“the most successful individual McDonald’s campaign,” according to the agency. (The winner, by the way, was The Preztelnator, a burger topped with ham and two kinds of cheese on a pretzel bun. And, yes, McDonalds now sells it and the four runners-up in its Germany stores.)

It’s also one more example of connecting with your audience through a two-way conversation, giving them a level of ownership that transcends traditional media. Crowdsourcing builds relationships and strengthens positive impressions, which—in the end—is the true objective of any public relations effort.  

 “Approach crowdsourcing as an opportunity to engage a new group of potential supporters,” says Soha El Borno of Idealware in a recent column on crowdsourcing for nonprofits. “In the end, the tools don’t matter. What’s important is coming up with meaningful ways to engage, learning from other organizations that have successfully used crowdsourcing, and having faith in the process.”