> BlogBack in July of 2010 Facebook released a Beta product to a limited number of users called ‘Facebook Questions’, which allowed those users to ask a question and if their friends answer it, friends of their friends could too. So for instance a user might ask ‘What’s the best Search Engine Optimisation Company to use in New Zealand’ and that user's wider Facebook community can respond.
Late last week Facebook made mention of Facebook Questions again, which leads us to believe that this product has advanced and will become part of everyone’s account at some stage.
We have all seen or even asked a question or two from our Facebook friends at some point in our history of using this Social Media medium and 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. Once you have you will see the below on your News Feed page:
Clicking on a question gives you an ‘Ask something…’ field and allows you to add Poll Options, as below, if you want to:
Typing something into the ‘Poll Options’ fields 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.
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.
You can also ‘tag’ your question with a relevant topic e.g. cars, photography so that a) the relevant users can answer your question and b) others can benefit from your question and the responses given.
What Does This Mean for Businesses Using Facebook?
This product doesn’t appear to be available to business pages for now, but having said that, business pages can 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.
They may also be recommending you more so than before, and 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 – 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.
I see Facebook Questions being used in the future as a way for business professionals to generate market research type conversation. However, with business pages not having this product available at present, users would have to do this via a personal profile.
Whichever way you look at it, Social Media Marketing is more and more about word-of-mouth than ever before. Where before you used to just create a website conduct some Search Engine Marketing on it and wait to rank, you now have to think outside of the square and be willing to put some time and effort into Social Media.
New Plymouth
Phone (+64) 06 769 5640
Fax (+64) 06 769 5641
Email info@apexinternet.co.nz
Christchurch
Phone (+64) 03 374 6518
Fax (+64) 03 374 6519
Email chch@apexinternet.co.nz
