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Brandon Mendelson is the coordinator for A Million High Fives. Follow @BJMendelson on Twitter or add him as a friend on Facebook.

Every few days, I get an email asking this question: “I have this awesome idea to help X, but I’m not sure what direction to take. Do I open things up to the crowd to collaborate and target a mass audience? Or do I put everything together myself and target a specific group?” This is a question everyone from the biggest brand to the smallest start-up is asking: should you go with the crowd or should you go niche?

But before you make a decision, let’s take a look at these paths and what they offer.

Two Paths Diverge Online

One path is called Shirky Avenue, named for Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations. The example you’re most familiar with from Shirky Ave. is Wikipedia, a sprawling, self-policed online encyclopedia that at least one major study said was as good as its print competitors. On Shirky Ave. we find mass collaboration can lead to greater audience investment, and a potentially higher payoff in terms of purchases and donations. Who doesn’t want to own a piece of something they invested their time in?

Shirky Avenue’s motto: The crowd is the future of everything.

There’s another path to consider, however, one called Godin Street, named for my hero, Seth Godin. If you read any of Seth’s books, particularly Purple Cow, you know what’s on this road: hyper-targeted, hyper-local, niche content designed to cater to a small and very specific audience. A “Purple Cow” example would be Tucker Max’s “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” and Maddox’s “Alphabet Of Manliness.” The highly aggressive, satirical style of both Max and Maddox have propelled them from blogs to New York Times best-sellers by catering to their audience and no one else.

Godin Street’s motto: Forget everyone else!

Your field and situation will ultimately determine the path you take. And while Godin Street and the hyper-targeting approach has a lot of advantages for traditional businesses or not-for-profits, I think there is success waiting on Shirky Avenue, and that’s the path I recommend people take.

Who Is This Crowd And What Do They Do?

Now I know you’re thinking, “I read Microtrends and Bowling Alone. Where’s this crowd”? Fair question, but the answer is right in front of you.

The more we isolate ourselves, the more the following is true:

1. We start to believe what others like us believe — and not what everyone else believes. Want proof? You’ve probably very recently heard someone say MySpace is dead, but it’s still one of the world’s most popular websites. MySpace is “dead” because the vocal early adopters of the world have written it off, that doesn’t actually mean it’s dead or any less relevant.

2. We all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. There’s a universal desire on everyone’s part to connect with other human beings. You can find the proof in every story, in every culture, since the beginning. And if you want a more social media answer, just look at how many people are using social networks to connect with people.

The crowd is out there, waiting to be a part of something extraordinary. Here are some starter tips to draw them in to your project.

Five Easy Steps To Draw In The Crowd

1. Focus on The Need. Chris Brogan does a lot of things right, but the community he is building around his and Julien Smith’s new book, “Trust Agents,” is the best thing I think he’s ever done. Chris found a common bond, something that goes beyond his network and touches everyone: trust. More specifically, how to earn and build on that trust. Listen to people. Anybody will do. When you listen to enough of them, you’ll start to hear the same needs. Identify the need and build a solution from there.

2. It’s Not You, It’s We. You have to allow room for your project to evolve beyond you. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” remember? Phrase everything in terms of being a team and working toward a common goal that benefits everyone, not just you.

3. Determine Your Touchpoints. A touchpoint is any point online where a member of the crowd can contact you. Your blog, Twitter, and Facebook presence are all touchpoints. You should aim for at least two to show up in search results because that’s how most people find things. But be careful not to over extend yourself — it’s better to have no presence at all in social media than to have an inactive one. It also doesn’t hurt to link out to your active touchpoints from your blog as a way to let people know they can find you there.

4. Set Clear Goals. Mark Horvath of InvisiblePeople.tv has a clear goal: Give a voice to the voiceless. With Mark’s project, you know what you’re getting into by supporting it, and a cool thing happens: his audience forms a bond with each other. Now the members of the crowd have something to discuss and work towards together, allowing a community to form around the project. The motivation of each member of the crowd is different but your task is to allow the crowd to come in and easily identify the project’s goal.

5. Let Go. Once the crowd understands the goal, take a step back. Follow Wikipedia’s approach. The crowd comes in and makes edits, but there is still someone keeping an eye on things to make sure the goal is reached. When the project does evolve beyond you, let the crowd know how to police itself, and they will. You can see that in action on any Wikipedia Talk page. Your role is now to steer people coming to join the crowd in the right direction.

My challenge to you: I’d like you to give us your ideas and suggestions on how to draw the crowd to a project. All you have to do is leave a comment below.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- How to Be Generous: A Guide for Social Media Brands
- 10 Things You Must Do to Earn Your Audience’s Trust
- 5 Essential Tips for Promoting Your Charity Using Social Media
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business
- 5 Social Media Lessons Learned From Whole Foods

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Nikada

Tags: clay shirky, crowd, List, seth godin, social entrpreneurism

Brandon Mendelson is the coordinator for the Business Card Build-Off, part of America’s largest crowdfunded project, A Million High Fives. Follow @BJMendelson for project updates.

Lincoln once said, “With the public trust, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is possible”. Social media is now a daily activity that millions of people around the world consume and participate in. This is the first time in human history that anyone, no matter who you are or where you are has an opportunity to create, share, and prosper, and if you’re going to succeed and stand out in a heavily crowded social media ocean, you need to earn your audience’s trust.

For those entrepreneurs who have increasingly turned to crowdfunding to fund their projects as advertising dollars dry up, earning trust has become especially important. If you fail in earning the public trust, your project won’t go anywhere, and you won’t be able to raise funds. If you rely on your users to financially support your product, then earning their trust is paramount, because they’re not going to back you if they don’t trust you.

Below is a list of ten things you must do to earn the trust of your online audience. The list is written from a crowdfunding perspective, but this advice really applies to anyone working in social media and seeking the trust of their users.

Earning the Public Trust

1. Tell us who you are. Do you have a website with your name as the domain? If not, get a social networking profile, fill it out completely, and use the domain to point to your profile.

2. Choose your best picture. Common sense, right? But you also want to avoid staged photos that look like you’re selling real estate. Look for a photo that tells your story and use it consistently across all your profiles.

3. Don’t setup a profile on every network. Find your tent poles (Twitter, Facebook), then use one or two smaller networks, like FourSquare and Streamy, and maintain a healthy presence on them. This way, you are where the crowd currently is, and positioned for where they will be.

4. Own your subject. You don’t need to be an expert at first. You should work hard to become one, but when you’re starting out, you should find the book other books and websites in your area reference. Read that book. As time goes on, pick up the books that book referenced. Most non-fiction books tend to regurgitate what’s already out (ditto for websites), but by going to the core book and then going from there you will be ahead of the game.

5. Don’t be fake. A problem many people face online is that we’re sensitive to what everyone wants, so we try to fake it. Nobody wants to give money to a phony. Take the material you’ve learned and put your own spin on it. It won’t be for everyone, but everyone won’t give you money, anyway. People who like and trust you, however, will. Find your voice and the people it appeals to.

6. Be Available. Can I call you? Can I send snail mail? If you want money from your audience and press attention, you need to provide a way to quickly and easily contact you.

7. Be Transparent. Matthew Zachary of the I’m Too Young For This Foundation once said to me that his organization was “Obama-like” in terms of transparency. For any project using your audience’s money, you too have to be “Obama-like” in your transparency. Public budgets, public documents, public receipts, even your emails should be public. Not everything has to be released in the early stages — many crowdfunders fear the loss of their idea to a competitor — but when the project is in motion, open your vaults.

8. Write for the web. People won’t trust what they won’t read. Keep your material short, simple, and useful. Use sub-headings, have a great first sentence (your lead), and keep the article short.

9. Document everything. How are you keeping us posted? Use video more than tweets and blog posts, and update your audience (at least) once a week. Video is the most personal method of online communication.

10. Answer every message. Tweets, video comments, emails. Answer everything. Even if it takes you forever, reply to everyone. If you are building an audience, you have a responsibility (and note, I’m saying you, not your assistant) to reply to your audience until the project has finished.

Earning the public trust takes time. But by following these ten steps consistently, you will be able to help your project succeed.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- How to Be Generous: A Guide for Social Media Brands
- A Control Freak’s Guide to Social Media Influence
- The Importance of Focus: A Guide for Social Media Brands
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business
- Tweetable Eats: What Street Vendors Can Teach Businesses About Twitter

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mevans

Tags: crowdfunding, Lists, public trust, social media, Trust