5 types of questions to encourage engagement on your social media posts

If you’re reading this blog, you are probably out there looking for answers to your engagement problems. As you may know, most of the social media platforms use an algorithm (a mathematical formula) to calculate your relevance to your existing followers. One of the outcomes of this is determining how many of your followers will actually see your posts in your newsfeed. The best way to prove your relevance is to get engagement on your posts - as quickly as possible. When it comes to ranking engagement on your posts, likes are good, comments are great and shares are awesome. When people engage with your posts, your content gets pushed out to some of their friends, increasing your reach and opening up your content to new audiences - for free.

Sometimes it is just difficult to get any engagement on your posts though, no matter how hard you try. This can be dealt with using a number of strategies but for now, I want you to focus on the idea of actually asking questions that elicit a response. Keep in mind that in face-to-face conversations, asking questions of someone is a great way to show that you are interested in them - their ideas and their opinions. This definitely translates into the social media world.

5 types of questions to try

Open ended questions
These are aimed at a more meaningful answer from your audience so use these sparingly. The types of answers you are looking for will be personal feelings, opinions or ideas about a subject. For example I might ask “How has the introduction of the Instagram algorithm affected your post engagement?”

Fill in the blank questions
These can be a fun way way to encourage a response. You can make it entirely random but I think it’s better if you can use it as a way to find out something about your followers. For me that might be something like “the hardest thing about using social media is ______________”. A hairdresser might go for something like “The hair care product I cannot live without is ____________” or if you’re a bar just a fun Friday afternoon one “my favourite Friday afternoon drink is _____________”.

Multiple choice questions
You can buy a poll plugin for Facebook or you could just ask a comparison type question ie. “Which do you prefer Instagram or Facebook?”. “Do you blow dry or air dry your hair?”. “Beer or wine tonight?” These might also be simple yes or no questions ie. “Do you use Instagram for your business?”.

It’s a good idea to keep your questions nice and simple with the option for a one word answer - that’s really no more effort than clicking a reaction but it’s far more powerful for your engagement.

Frequently asked questions
This is particularly used by bloggers I find. They will post a question that has been sent in by someone and then pop it up for their followers to answer. It is a fantastic way to get interaction from the community, particularly if the topic is something very relatable.

Timely questions
Timely questions might provoke a response about something that is happening at the time. You could look up trending topics to get inspiration ie. as I am writing this everybody is talking about that Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad so, if relevant, you could ask people what they think. It definitely does not have to be celebrity-orientated though - keep it relevant to your audience.

And lastly, if someone comments on your post make sure you respond in some way. Reward them for taking the time to engage with you - this will encourage them to do it again.

I’d love to hear if any of these strategies work for you. Get in touch if you’d like to work on your social media content strategy or if you'd like to find out more about ranking and relevance.