Facebook Questions, Things To Consider

Facebook released a new feature on March 24 where you can ask questions both through your business pages, and for your personal profile.

In testing out the new feature, I've found a few things to consider when using it:

Standing Out from the Crowd
Your question may not stand out much in the newsfeed when other posts have photos and video links included. It could differentiate the question post because of that. But as most of us know, photos and links equals engagement and neither of those are options within the Question feature (yet).

Keep It Short & Sweet
In writing answers, you must keep in mind the amount of space an answer will be given. It appears that 40 characters is the magic number, and then it gets cut off. You can rollover the answer area and have an ALT tag (caption) show the whole answer, but you will have to consider the initial portion of your response more closely so that it will engage someone to initiate the rollover.

This could be a major hindrance to gain indepth answers, but works great for yes-no-or-maybe questions.


Sharing with Friends
If you've found a question that you want to know the answer to or are trying to make the question go viral, you may click the "Ask Friends" button on a question. This pops up a box containing all of your friends whom you can check off.

The major draw back at this stage of the game, is that you cannot use the segments you've created for your friends. Instead you must either start typing the name or scroll through an alphabetic list.


Remember You're on Facebook
If you answer or post a question, everyone can see it whether they're your friend or not — including businesses, clients, your Mom, and others. This is a gold mine for marketers and hiring agents, but also takes privacy away.

These are just a few of the things I've found that deserve some thought. Feel free to share what you've found when using this new feature.