Generating Content - Asking Questions

This post is part of a series on generating content

Constantly having to read or listen to what someone else says becomes tiresome after a while. People really enjoy talking and a great way to get people talking is to ask questions. Ask people to give you their thoughts and opinions and start a relevant conversation. Not only will you get more engagement but you might also learn something new from a different perspective.

Here are some ideas for types of questions you could ask to get you started:

Ask a personal question related to your brand

Ask your followers to share how, where, or when they would use something you create. This is an opportunity for your followers to combine their goals of self-expression with brand-specific passion, and creates some awesome user generated content that you can repurpose in the future. Make sure to provide a hashtag for people to use, so that the posts are all collected in one place.

Q & A

Ask your followers if they have any questions about your brand, product, or industry. Providing a well-executed Q&A space gives your followers a sense of importance and the opportunity to learn more about your brand; it also allows them to indirectly share ways in which they'd like it to improve, and provides you with insight into what areas you should focus on providing informational content.

Trivia or Games

Sometimes the easiest way to engage with your customers is with a simple trivia question or action-driven quiz to complete for fun. You can post an abstract visual game, or you could ask a trivia question, try to focus this on your product or industry. For example, ask followers to comment with their guess on what year your brand was founded.

Tag a friend

People go on social networks to connect with friends, so why not have them connect over your post? Asking a user to tag a friend over a shared experience, event, or personal preference is an easy way to drive a conversation thread between like-minded users in your following. You can tie a reward to your tag request, or you can caption around an experience that inherently inspires group sharing on social media, such as a picture relating to your industry.

Conversation starter

The best conversation starters are ones that are culturally relevant, or tangentially related to your brand and to complimentary lifestyle activities to your brand. A question that references something of interest to your followers can jump start a threaded conversation that reinforces brand affinity and builds a sense of community between your followers.

Quick survey

Ask your followers to show how they engage with or use your brand. In doing this, you are both encouraging user generated content and receiving data on why they love your brand in the first place.

Request tips and input

Asking your followers for help, advice, or feedback reinforces their loyalty to your brand and drives engagement that can span multiple brand channels, depending on what you ask. Give users the option to either create a post or mention an idea in the comment section, incentivising them with a chance to feel personally involved in your campaign.

Experiential

Take advantage of emphasis on experience, travel, food, or other sensory pursuits. Ask questions that tap into your followers' experiential focus points, the topics that they care about most, and make them excited to share and engage with your brand. You can also ask questions around cultural and holiday practices, sports, entertainment, or other emotionally driven topics. Come up with a strategy to make this relevant to your industry and create focused ideas.

Fill in the blank

Which ____ are you? Fill-in-the-blank is similar to other trivia and survey questions, except the answer is more restricted. Make sure your fill-in-the-blank is brand-related, or you could reference an upcoming holiday. Let your followers do the rest of the work by commenting their answer and tagging their friends to make it a group game. And as always, make sure to include a hashtag for your followers to spread the word for you.

Surprise and delight

Nothing gets people talking faster than a lifestyle hypothetical. Ask your followers something that gets their imagination going. Think dream vacation ideas, alternate career possibilities, or ten year plans.