Are you struggling to improve social media engagement? Want to get more shares on social media for your business?
If you’re ready to beef up your social presence, asking the right questions is the answer. Why? Because they’re interesting and engaging!
If you’re ready to speed up fan and follower growth, interaction, and engagement, let’s get going.
Below are the top questions you can use to boost your social media engagement and get more shares on social media!
10 Types of Questions to Get More Shares on Social Media
1. True of False
Testing your audiences knowledge about things related to your niche is a sure way to get a response.
You simply make a statement, and then ask them if it’s true or false. If you’re lucky, your community will even explain their answer.
Example:
True or False: Star Wars is the greatest movie of all time. (You’ll add this question to your graphic)
The idea is to pick a question that’s mainstream (at least to your audience) and will draw in a large crowd.
2. Fill in the Blank
Remember Mad Libs? I loved those as a child. Who doesn’t like to respond to a simple, but relatable question?
Use this type of question across social media to offer insight into you and your business. The bonus is the insight you gain into your fans and followers.
Question: The one food I could eat every day is _________.
Now frame it.
For example:
I’m a huge fan of avocados. I could eat them in just about everything and ANYTHING! Now, you tell me!
Add this to your graphic:
Fill in the blank: The one food I could eat every day is _________.
3. Motivational / Inspirational
This type of question serves two purposes. First, it adds depth to your posting strategy. Rather than simply post work related content, you go deeper with your audience.
Secondly, it lets your audience better understand what makes you tick.
Through motivational and inspirational posts like this one from Peg Fitzpatrick, you give your audience a more intimate view of your thoughts, processes and beliefs.
4. Experience /Relational
This is a simple way to let your followers know you care about their opinion and share how you can solve their problem.
For instance:
“What do you LOVE most about using our product/tool, etc?”
Add that question to your graphic with thoughts around why you’re asking.
For example:
“We just updated our software! Have you given it a try? Tell us what you love most!”
Or take a cue from Marie Forleo and use this type of question in a video. She frequently asks a question her community wants answered and then provides the solution in her video. It’s brilliant!
5. Survey
This is an easy way not only to conduct market research to improve your products and services, but also to make your audience feel they are part of the process.
This in turn shows that you value their feedback. For instance, you’re designing a new look for your fragrance.
Let them know what you’re up to:
“We’re getting ready to launch our new fragrance!”
Add your question to the graphic:
“What should our new bottle look like?”
6. Provide an Update or Tip
Share facts or updates about your industry, business or local community. You can use this type of question in a million different ways.
Provide tips around your product or little known facts about your app.
Here’s an example:
“Did you know that our dishwasher not only cleans the dishes, but also cleans in half the time than anything else on the market?”
I use this type of post to share a specific tip from one of my recent blog posts. It’s an easy way to highlight a particular part of the article, while re-purposing the content in a fresh and new way.
7. Fun and Frivolous
These are fun (insert: silly) questions to pique the curiosity of your audience. The goal is to drive response and encourage interaction. Pretty simple, and looks like this question posed by Fox News LA.
Movie tonight? Rotten Tomatoes’ @Matchity on #JurassicWorld, #MeandEarlandtheDyingGirl & more: http://t.co/HtdLgins6P pic.twitter.com/NXncSXg7VV
— FOX 11 Los Angeles (@FOXLA) June 12, 2015
It might look like this: (add this to your graphic)
“Have you seen how someone dances after winning one of our weekly prizes?”
You could then link to a video or post a pic submitted by a fan.
8. Timely
Timely questions provide your audience with new information and give them a chance to react to it, which in turn drives engagement.
They are based on what is happening right at that moment.
Here’s what it could sound like:
“Today we mark our 10-year anniversary; do you want to celebrate with us?”
Now share a picture of your team celebrating or a your cake.
9. Ask for Advice
You can begin a conversation about using your tool or product or working with your brand.
These questions are perfect for engagement, because they not only offer interaction between your brand and the audience, but also between the audience itself.
Take what you do and turn it into a question that lets your fans give their opinion. Then add it to a graphic.
“What do you do to improve your cell phone’s battery life?”
10. Edgy or Thought Provoking
Thought provoking questions help you learn what people think about a certain topic related to your niche.
They can push buttons and encourage vibrant and interactive conversation. And as we all know — there is nothing people like more than giving their own opinion. If you’re in the education industry, you might ask:
Should cell phones be banned from classrooms?
Buzzfeed has mastered this art.
How well do you actually know the US states? http://t.co/lZuVNZo9UG
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) June 14, 2015
Final Thoughts
The key to success in any social media platform is to interact or engage with your followers and fans.
Asking questions on social media is an excellent way to get the conversation going.
But you can’t just ask questions. You have to ask the right questions, because those are the sparks that ignite engagement.
nice post admin thanks for this i am really impressed
really worthy post admin thanks for this.
#3 pretty much always works Rebekah, whenever, wherever. Folks dig inspiration more than anything it seems. People crave high energy shares. Fabulous list!
Ryan
Hi Rebekah,
Great post as always! We use tons of visual content on social media for ourselves and our clients. We’ve used several of these techniques with success but there’s a couple here we’re pretty excited to try.
A word of caution about the fill in the blanks: make it something easy. We’ve done a few of these for clients that didn’t yet have much of a following on Facebook and responses were slow to come in with the meager organic reach they have. Again, make it something people don’t have to think about to much and are excited to answer.
One great fill in the blank post we did do was for a pet grooming account where we just said “I love my dog because _________” and got some great engagement!
Thanks again for sharing!
Hi Rebekah maam,
Great collection of witty questions! I think they have the power to take any dull conversion ON.
I had seen a few people using it already, but did not have anything as this resource. Bookmarked!
Excellent post! Now bookmarked and will be referenced many times in future. Engaging followers in a meaningful, interesting, engaging way is so crucial, yet so difficult to stay on top of. Thank you for your fantastic advice.
I loved reading this. It was informative but yet an easy read; easy to understand and fun to read all at the same time. Awesome
Glad to hear it Karl – thanks for stopping by!
Great collection of questions here, Rebekah.
I’ve had a lot of success with ‘Left or right?’ style posts on Facebook for some of my clients with physical merchandise. The edgier posts or the ones that ask for advice seem to do really well, too. 🙂
Very interesting Brent. It’s great to test. Every page is different and what works for one, won’t work for another. Glad to hear you’re seeing success with questions!
Hey Rebekah,
Great ideas. I finished reading your post and scrolled up to get the name of who wrote this post and then saw your name and thought, I should have guessed. Giving out such wonderful advice. This the second post I have read of yours and again you slam home some great tips. I have already got some of these committed to memory. You certainly know your stuff. Thank you.
Hi Rachel! Thank you so much for that wonderful compliment. I love to hear that you’ve found value in both posts you’ve read. Thanks for coming back and checking another one out!
I’ve tried quite a few of these tips both on Twitter and Facebook and realize that some tips work very well with my audience to extract engagement while others definitely show up in their newsfeed. My top 3 that always get noticed and are often shared onward are the motivational quotes with a question, funny photos with a message and definitely trending news items with a question. Thanks for the information, Rebekah and for making me step back and reflect on what I can be doing better.
It’s great to hear that you’re trying them on two different platforms and in a variety of ways. You’ll never know what works if you don’t try, try, try! 🙂
I always hear how well questions work, but when I post them for the social media accounts I manage, I get no response. Just…crickets.
I’m reluctant to try that tactic again because, to me, it looks terrible when you post a question and no one responds.
Anyone else have this issue?
I’m sure a lot of people have this issue Elisabeth. You won’t get a ton of response when you first start asking questions, but keep at it. They can and do work.
Thanks for the encouragement, Rebekah…and for all the great info!
Excellent tips. Thank you. Much appreciated shot in the arm ideas and tips for everyone who struggles to ante up their Facebook page engagement.
It’s not easy to get people talking with you and among themselves, but it can be done. Good luck with it Sherri!
Actionable points and tips, some of them are absolutely new to me. I am a newbie into social media just started my first job and dying to learn new techniques to grow my knowledge and productivity. These tips are really doable and these sound like they would surely get the results. Thanks for sharing this post.
What an exciting time for you Sam. Enjoy these moments as you’re just getting started on the long road to social media discovery. 🙂
Hai Rebekah:
This tips will be very essential for me. I gonna read all of your article and get your knowledge and experience. Thanks for sharing this article
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! Look forward to seeing you again.
Hi Rebekah,
I know that I have been guilty of creating posts on social media that were more sales pitch than engaging.
Engaging with customers/users is really the best way to use Social Media and your 10 tips really are a great resource for making posts more interactive.
I am going to put in to practice what I’ve learnt from your post and hopefully will see an increase in my customer engagement.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Best wishes
John
Hey John! It’s not easy to stop and think through our posts or the questions we’re asking. If it were, everyone would stop pushing out content just for the sake of it. I’ll wait to hear your success stories!
I use just about everyone of these types of questions in my Society and they work like gangbusters to encourage engagement and create connections through commonalities and the open discussion. It’s so important to create dialogues and NOT monologues…here’s to hoping more peeps start understanding that.
Great article, Rebekah!
I can only hope you’re right Andrea. Creating conversation and open dialogue is exactly how you and I met. Without it, we’d still be ships passing in the night – posting content, but never seeing, engaging with it or caring about it.