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Facebook Questions Launches: Marketers Cheer

 

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Facebook Questions Officially Launches resized 600Facebook recently passed 500 million users and now is adding an important new feature to its platform. Today, the social networking platform released Facebook Questions. This new feature allows users to ask questions to the “entire” Facebook community. As companies like Yahoo and LinkedIn have used a Questions feature for years, this is not an unprecedented addition, but it highlights the possibility for individuals to communicate in a new way with people outside of their direct Facebook network.


According to Mashable, Facebook Questions will allow users to do a few things:
  • Photo questions: Users can post pictures of objects that they have questions about or have problems identifying and then can receive answers from other users.
  • Simple Polling: This is a big one for marketers. Now that a Facebook user can quickly create a poll to answer a question, the amount of available data to mine for industry and business insight will increase.
  • Tagging: Tagging is the method Facebook uses for organizing questions. The point of tagging is to allow users to easily discover new questions and answer the ones relevant to them.
  • Following: Users who want to keep track of certain answers can "follow" a question to see responses as they get added.
Facebook Questions is public and will be open to everyone. The feature is currently in beta and only available to a portion of Facebook users prior to its release to all users. Brands that have Facebook pages will be allowed to answer questions.

Marketing Takeaway

Today, Facebook made its platform more valuable to marketers. Marketing on Facebook has been challenging because of privacy and a clear separation of profile and business pages. Facebook Questions provides a new way for businesses and prospects to communicate and discover one another in a relevant way. LinkedIn Questions has long been a valuable tool for B2B marketers and it is likely that Facebook will be used in similar ways but on a larger scale.

As a marketer, it is critical you understand that Facebook Questions or any other questions platform is not a place for advertisement. Instead, this new feature provides an environment for contributing value and relevance to potential customers and establishing trust between them and your business. As people start using this feature, look for questions and tags relevant to your business and provide answers to questions that you have the experience and expertise to answer.

Do you plan on adding Facebook Questions into you social media marketing plan?

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comments Comments

Posted by Kipp Bodnar on Wed, Jul 28, 2010 @ 04:45 PM

COMMENTS

This sounds great. I've been involved in LinkedIn and Yahoo Questions for a while. It can be a handy way to establish oneself as a thought leader in an area. I'm curious if FB will allow people to 'like' and/or choose 'best answers'. If so, that's another opportunity to establish credibility, but on a way larger network.

posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 5:12 PM by Julia Stewart

Neat! I'm excited to see how Facebook questions will evolve. I also agree wholeheartedly that these are not an invitation to companies or anyone to try to sell! I sure hope that the community understands that it's about engagement, not about promotion. 
 
Incidentally, I think that in addition to the "LIKE" option, Facebook should implement a "DISLIKE" function. Anyone else agree?

posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:41 PM by Jody Raines

Can anyone answer FB questions or just brands with FB pages?

posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 1:34 AM by DB

I have just recently started experimenting with FaceBook and this information is most helpful. As FaceBook continues to evolve I am sure they will become one of my main affiliate marketing tools. Thanks for this information

posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:29 AM by Gabe Johnson

@DB - It is my understanding that any Facebook user can answer questions.

posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 8:00 AM by Kipp Bodnar

I fully agree that brands need to be careful to not use this as another platform to push products. 
 
But I do think this can be a great opportunity for brands to start conversations with consumers. By asking non-product specific questions to a wider audience marketers can develop even more relevant marketing that's beneficial to consumers.

posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 2:43 PM by Abby Snyder

I think the "question" format is a great forum for feedback as opposed to "pushing" product. This is an opportunity to test thoughts, ideas and suggestions that can lead to valuable input when developing product. 
 
I think this new feature is going to have a major impact for small and large business owners. I look forward to trying out the polling that has the potential to reach 500 million user community.

posted on Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 6:16 PM by doug macfaddin

Yes! I completely agree. Where there is an up there must be a down, and thus there needs to be a "dislike" button as well as a "like" button. Anything else creates a false world. It's not all kittens and rainbows out there!

posted on Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 12:13 AM by intransition

We're going to hire a Next Big Thing supervisor. His job will be to add action items to the rest of the staff's list, based on whatever hot new feature or tool is coming out this week. He will receive espresso intravenously, and we will routinely throw out his suggestions from two weeks prior.

posted on Monday, August 02, 2010 at 10:49 AM by ManPuppyMen

Comments have been closed for this article.