1 3 Ways Businesses Can Benefit From Facebook Questions

It’s official. Facebook’s new Questions feature is live and asking what you want to know. The best part? Fan pages can ask questions, respond to comments on their questions, and answer other’s questions. With all these questions flying around you may instantly be asking one of your own “How can my business or organization benefit from Facebook Questions?”

1) Market Research
Currently about 1 percent of Facebook users (about 5 million people) will have early beta access to Facebook Questions, and it will be gradually rolled out to the rest of Facebook's 500 million active users. With the new tool you’re not limited to only the opinions of your friends or existing fan base anymore. All questions and their responses are open to the public. As a result, with the new Questions feature you will be able to tap into the opinions of Facebook’s network of users serving as a resource for some impromptu market research.

In addition to asking an open-ended question you have the option of creating a poll to focus the information you find. For example, if you’re a plastic surgeon looking to find out more about consumer behavior, specifically what would be the strongest influencer for users considering surgery you could ask: “What was the deciding factor for choosing your plastic surgeon: surgery cost, surgeon’s experience, before and after pictures, word of mouth, convenient location, impression in consultation?”

2) Establish Yourself as an Expert
One of the key elements of the new Questions feature is the ability to tag questions with keywords to associate them with specific topics. The questions a user asks will be shown to people who have expressed interest in the particular topics that were tagged, as well as to their friends and friends of friends. Users will also be able to browse topics to find answers to different questions.

The whole idea behind the questions feature is to help connect the Facebook community with people who are in the know ensuring that users get the best possible answers to their questions. You can establish yourself as an expert in your specific area by searching topics relevant to your specialty and providing insightful answers to users’ questions. Users have the ability to see your answers to other questions you have posted by clicking the “See more from…” by your thumbnail image. You will also want to sign up to view new questions about these topics to instantly receive updates on new questions in the topic area.

3) Increase Awareness of Your Brand
I constantly hear clients tell me that consistently expanding their fan base is an area that stumps them. By joining the conversation you can reach out to new people and gain exposure for your business through the conversations generated in the Questions feature. Just remember what the tool is essentially for and forget about blatant self plugging. Remember social media is all about sharing. Listen to the community and engage them in conversation by sharing insightful information. If a user finds your answers helpful it is very likely they will be interested in learning more about your organization. They can easily click on your name or thumbnail to view your organization’s fan page or your personal profile.

Facebook is unique in having one of the largest communities of people and it is a community that is already used to asking questions to others on the social network. There is significant potential for organizations to utilize the new questions feature to learn more about their target market while also increasing public awareness and interest in their services, products and expertise.