Crowd Sourcing/Social networks: What drives user?

I am working on the business model for a web start-up idea.
The premise of the idea involves feedback generation for a brand/customer service, crowd-sourcing and social networking among reviewers/users.

My queries revolve arnd:
"What drives user to visit crowd-sourcing/social networking websites?"

1. How to generate user base? Either using facebook connect or self-generation?
2. How to motivate them to leave feedback?
3. In ref. to Q2, Is Reward system required? If yes, what kind of (monetary, badges or discount deals etc.) or kind of a contest - First 5/Top 3 feedback get rewarded!
   "Personally, I am not a fan of monetary rewards. This has limitations and risks of backfiring."

Since already, lot of feedback generation websites are available, I am not sure if user would like to try another one, even if something innovative is offered. We are trying to work on our "WOW" factor.

A detail perspective shall be appreciated.

Thanks

To answer your first question, there are two questions you need to answer in everyone's mind -- How are you different from (?), and why should I use yours?

This has a lot to do with perception. Perception = motivation. We move towards that which we perceive will do us good, and move away from that which we think is not good for us. As soon as their perception about your brand is obvious, motivation follows (like night follows day).

Rewards. Look up Robert Cialdini 's thoughts about influence. Reciprocation, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, consistency. Use any combination of Cialdini's 6 tools of influence and you will never go wrong.

• Badges that people can share with their social network is good.
• Or, if they earn a certain number of points, they get a free t-shirt from your website.
• How about an honor roll that is prominently displayed on your landing page? They make a certain number of points and they get their profile in that list?

There's a lot of things that you can do to motivate/influence people to do something for you. If you have the site up and running, post the URL as a comment and I'll take a look at it. Maybe I can come up with a few more ideas for you.

To answer what drives users to social networks, think about what value (both reward based and internally motivated) someone would derive from participating.

• Will users be among like-minded people and be able to connect over some valuable common ground?
• Will they be the "first" to see new and innovative branding and marketing campaigns from their favorite companies? Being an "insider" is a fair motivator.
• You can't really extrinsically motivate users to leave feedback. Well you can offer stuff, but then people participate for the reward. You want users to be intrinsically motivated, that is they genuinely want/care/like, the premise of the social system. I think positioning as an "insider" and special group that gets insight on companies they care about can do this.
• On top of this, creating some sort of reward/currency system can be effective.
• You can use the ubiquitous social network to bring in new users, or other social networking strategies (search other questions on here for examples).

In refrence to the rewards: Instead of straight monetary rewards what about offering a chance to win a reward. Or some point system they could turn in for a reward.
I actually use monetary rewards, gift cards, if I use someones story on my blog, I pay them for it, it's easier and cheaper than finding missed opportunity stories on my own.