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Engage Fans With The Questions Feature On Facebook

facebook-questionsFacebook just started to roll out the updated Questions feature in their website. Starting March 24, all Facebook Page owners can choose to have the Facebook Questions product on their dashboards. Apparently, the social network noticed that individuals and Page owners frequently ask questions using their status updates. To address this, Facebook launched the updated Questions product, which allows users to go beyond merely putting an inquiry out there. Facebook Questions lets users attach possible answers or choices to their questions, allowing respondents to answer queries with a single click.

Good News for Page Owners

In the realm of Facebook Pages, one of the basic rules to keep fans engaged is to ask questions. Similar to real-life situations, likable people are those who constantly interact with their surroundings. They network with other people, see how they’re doing, ask questions, and gather feedback. Most Facebook Pages already have this covered, which is why it is so common to see companies asking questions, or using fill-in-the-blanks in their status updates.

The revamped Questions feature has a lot of customizable features that will definitely help Facebook Page owners engage more with their fans. When posting a question, page owners have the option to either create a poll with limited choices, or allow their fans to add answers of their own.  The comment section is still there, so users are allowed to express follow up remarks in their own words. As fans respond to the polls, each option’s box fills up to reflect the number of people that picked that choice.  This enables users to see and compare the popularity of each answer.

Moreover, the feature is always public; questions are posted on participants’ Faceboook profiles, allowing their friends to view the polls. This not only gives more exposure to the Facebook page that posted the question, it also opens the possibility for popular questions to become viral in the Facebook network, thus giving Page owners insights on communities outside their fan base.

On Individual Profiles

All in all, Facebook Questions can do wonders for companies and organizations that operate Facebook Pages. However, this new feature may not have much of an impact on individual Facebook profiles. When it comes to asking questions on the Internet, people already have their go-to Q&A websites, such as Quora and Yahoo Answers.

According to Mashable, Facebook plans to implement a “roulette-type feature that allows users to browse Facebook’s eventual mountain of Q&A.” Furthermore, users will be able to follow questions to receive notifications in case new answers come up. But can Facebook lure people’s curiosities out of Yahoo, Wikipedia, and the burgeoning Quora network? Let’s make a poll out of it, shall we?

Written By

Francesca is from AdMedia.com, a performance-based advertising network that connects advertisers to consumers across many channels, including email, domain, social and search networks. To learn more, network with AdMedia via Facebook and Twitter.

14 Comments

14 Comments

  1. Best Heapdhones

    March 30, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    That’s interesting, I also read they that are rolling out a sponsored stories thing. Where each user can write a story that shows related likes they have done and other stuff. I have to read more on it, I don’t totally get it yet but sounds interesting.

  2. Francesca StaAna

    March 30, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    Yes, Facebook is currently working on real time contextual advertising. This means that the social network will run ads as conversations are happening. For instance, if you post a status message pertaining to burgers, then you’d instantly see ads about burger joints in the right-hand side of your dashboard.

  3. Best Heapdhones

    March 30, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    woah that’s pretty crazy, i guess I have to look into facebook advertising more.

    • Francesca StaAna

      March 30, 2011 at 11:44 pm

      Yup. It wouldn’t hurt to check it out; see if it’s the right advertising model for your business.

  4. Ava

    March 30, 2011 at 10:05 pm

    I don’t know if I like that there will be advertising in my personal statuses, but from a business standpoint that is genius. It’s too bad that Facebook doesn’t have two separate kinds of accounts, because I feel sometimes the social media and advertising aspect takes the personalization out of it.

    • Francesca StaAna

      March 30, 2011 at 11:42 pm

      Facebook, along with other web giants are really looking into ads that are relevant to what the user is viewing online. Just today, it was reported that Google is doing something similar: Gmail is set to roll out a new ad system that learns from your email activities. So don’t be surprised if you start seeing ads that are related to that email you just read.

      • Admin

        March 31, 2011 at 9:51 am

        That’s a pretty scary thought although it’s not like someone’s gonna be reading your email as these sort of things are usually automated.

        • Francesca StaAna

          March 31, 2011 at 6:45 pm

          Nah, Google’s not going to go as far as reading emails; they just have excellent algorithms.

    • Admin

      March 31, 2011 at 9:50 am

      Unfortunately, advertisement plays a very important role in terms of revenue generation etc. in social-media and indeed any other. However, I do get your point about having a sort of premium Facebook account for users who want an ad-free service as I believe there are quite a number of users (maybe a smaller %) who share the same opinion as you.

  5. Karen Arbutine

    March 31, 2011 at 11:39 am

    I’m looking forward to explore this new update from facebook. It’s really good to hear about such developments. I’m also completely eager to experiment the Helpcentre article on converting profiles to pages. To be able to convert personal user profiles into official business Pages is something new I’m looking forward to learn. I use twitter more but all these new updates by facebook sounds very tempting. All these developments also makes it more logical to make facebook the social networking site with most users.

    • Francesca StaAna

      March 31, 2011 at 6:52 pm

      Yes, Facebook recently allowed user profiles to convert to Pages. Doing this will transfer your profile pictures, and turn all your friends into “likes.” If you’re planning to convert, be sure to backup all your information (wall posts, messages, friends) before switching, because the process is irreversible at present.

      PS: Incorporate the Questions feature too, as this will engage your friends and fans. 🙂

      • Admin

        April 1, 2011 at 10:01 am

        Personally, I would rather have a separate fan/business page to my original user profile.

  6. Odurinde

    April 15, 2011 at 7:12 am

    This is a good development for the page own, it will enable page owns to ask lots of question on product and service.

    • Francesca StaAna

      April 15, 2011 at 7:05 pm

      Not to mention, questions have the potential to go viral because when a fan participates in your poll, it automatically appears on their Facebook profile. This, in turn, can actually draw fans to your page.

      Thanks for the comment!

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