For small businesses, social media is a tool for creating conversation and relationships that help people get to know your brand (read: get to know your brand before you start selling all the time). Of the many ways we can create engagement on social media, one of the great ones is asking questions. Your followers’ answers give you knowledge about your audience and what they want to see from you.

“Okay, great,” you say. “Post questions. But my questions aren’t getting any responses.”

Radio silence is not fun for anyone. If that is where you are, here are 5 tactics to start from scratch in building engagement around questions.

  • If your page does not have a ton of engagement already, try starting with simple questions with multiple choice answers or one-word responses. It is rather easy for a person to type “A,” or “True,” or “Yes.” It takes more time for them to craft a thoughtful response. If they don’t have a relationship with your page, they might just move on without doing it. In these early stages, keep track of what types of questions your audience is most actively responding to. Do more of that.
  • As you start to build engagement, try diving into questions with potentially longer answers. Give an either/or. Have a fill-in-the-blank. With more engagement, try something really open-ended. Once you have the audience, it can be gratifying to get such interesting responses.
  • Comment on the comments. Like the comments. Engage with them. And try doing so right away, when they are most likely still at their computers and able to get a conversation going. Those conversations can be the beginning of a strong relationship.
  • How do you get the people to start coming over to your page?  Be responsive on other people’s pages. It’s not just about you. People notice who responds on their pages. Consider building a list of 10-15 (the more the merrier) relevant, interesting pages that you monitor each week. Be consistent in engaging with their pages.
Be responsive on other people’s pages. #socialmedia #marketingtips #smb Share on X
  • One of the things that makes a post more relevant is how much engagement it has. So, write your question. Then answer it in the first comment. Let your answer be an extension of your question post. If you want to build engagement on an important question, consider reaching out to others who you know would be interested in the question. If you have people you are cross-engaging with, remember that their activity is helping your posts to be seen by more people.

You may also want to check out this Tip of the Week from August on 10 tips for engaging on Facebook specifically.

This Tip of the Week is a response to a question that I received recently. And I know that there are many people out there who are now experiencing or have experienced minimal response to questions. Hopefully this helps give some ideas on how to create more engagement on social media.

And if you want to do targeted work on building an effective Facebook strategy for your business, check out my Facebook Engagement Bootcamp. In eight weeks, you can boost your Facebook engagement and conversions.