What Could Facebook Questions Mean For You?

Have you heard about ‘Facebook Questions? It is a new product which allows users to ask a question and if their friends answer it, friends of their friends can too. So for instance a user might ask ‘What’s the best restaurant in Auckland City?’ and that user's wider Facebook community can respond.

All of you with a Facebook account will have asked a question or two from your Facebook friends at some point in time while using this Social Media medium. Facebook saw this as an opportunity to make a common user interaction more useful in order for their users to get answers more easily and faster than before.

Facebook questions aren’t automatically added to your Facebook account at present, but you can sign up to use this product. Clicking on a question gives you an ‘Ask something…’ field and allows you to add Poll Options if you want to.

The ‘Poll Options’ field gives ideas from a dropdown of other Facebook pages and such like related to what you are typing. Using this poll feature means that users who reply to your question can ‘vote’ on which is the best option, but if they so desire they can still add their own option.

Who can see these questions? Well, according to Facebook these questions are made public to anyone on the internet, however they generally show your friends responses to you first and you can click on a filter to see the answers from the general public.

It is also possible to ‘tag’ your question with a relevant topic e.g. horse riding, motorsports so that a) the relevant users can answer your question and b) others can benefit from your question and the responses given.

If you are a business owner with a Facebook page, you may be wondering what this new product means for you. While it does not appear to be a feature of business pages at present, business pages can still be included in users ‘Poll Options’ – so bear in mind that people are now able to compare your business on Facebook, more easily than before.

If you have a Facebook page for your business, you need to ensure that you keep it updated and keep your Social Media presence going – in case your businesses Facebook page is included in someone’s poll. First impressions count, and no one likes to see a Facebook page that hasn’t been posted on recently, it’s like walking into a shop with no shop assistant there to help you.

Social Media Marketing is more and more about word-of-mouth than ever before. In previous days, it was simply a matter of creating a website, implementing some Search Engine Marketing on it and then waiting to rank in the Search Results. These days you have to think outside of the square and be willing to put some time and effort into Social Media. Consider the valuable market research that can be gleamed from a tool like Facebook Questions, and the positive effects such findings could in turn have for your business.

By: Karyn Ogier

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Karyn specialises in Search Engine optimisation and marketing. As co-founder and Operations Director of Apex Internet Ltd, Karyn now has ten years experience in optimising and promoting websites and has a wealth of knowledge in the industry. Find out more about our Social Media Marketing service here.