How to Ask Questions on Snapchat Story
Questions to put on a story when you want replies rather than views. Ordered from the ones people answer in two words to the ones worth asking once your audience already talks back, with notes on what each tends to return.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Coffee or tea, and how do you take it?
Why ask it
A two-part question where the first half is a tap-level choice and the second gives people something to be particular about. Straight either-or questions get answered and then the conversation stops; adding "how" is what turns a vote into a reply you can respond to.
What was the last photo you took?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone has an answer sitting in their camera roll, so the effort is close to zero and the replies come back as images rather than text. It also produces genuinely unpredictable material, which is the main reason to run it more than once.
What song have you had on repeat?
Why ask it
One of the few story questions people answer even when they never reply to anything. Expect a screenshot of a now-playing screen, and expect a handful of people to answer with something they are slightly embarrassed by, which is where the conversation actually starts.
What is the weather doing where you are?
Why ask it
Works because it is trivially answerable and quietly interesting when your followers are spread across places. Weak if everyone you know lives in the same city, so this is one to skip if your audience is entirely local.
What is the best thing you have eaten this week?
Why ask it
The time limit is doing the work: without it people search for an all-time favourite, decide they cannot pick one, and close the story. Bounded questions get answered in seconds.
What is your go-to comfort food?
Why ask it
Reliably high response because there is no wrong answer and no risk in giving it. The interesting replies are the specific ones, a particular brand of instant noodles or something a parent used to make, so follow those up individually rather than reposting the list.
What is your favourite way to start the day?
Why ask it
Expect the same three or four answers from most people and something genuinely odd from a couple. Ask it once rather than as a recurring feature, since the second time round most of your audience remembers answering it.
What is making you laugh at the moment?
Why ask it
Anchored in the present, which is what separates it from asking what someone finds funny in general. General taste questions get a shrug; "at the moment" gets a link, a screenshot or a story about a friend.
What are you putting off right now?
Why ask it
Consistently produces more replies than any upbeat version of the same question, because everyone has an answer and admitting it costs nothing. Keep your own answer on the story too, or it reads as an audit rather than a shared complaint.
What is a show or film you would happily watch again tomorrow?
Why ask it
Asking for something rewatchable rather than a favourite lets people give an honest answer instead of a respectable one. The replies are also useful to you, which is not true of most story questions.
What is something small that improved your day?
Why ask it
The word small is load-bearing: it gives permission to mention a sandwich or a seat on the train, where a question about the best part of the day pushes people towards something they think is worth reporting, and most days do not have one.
What are you looking forward to this week?
Why ask it
Gives you something to ask about again in a few days, which is the closest a story question gets to a continuing conversation. If the replies are all about the weekend, that tells you where your audience is in their week.
What is something you learned recently that surprised you?
Why ask it
Slower to answer than the ones above, so expect fewer replies and better ones. It works best posted later in a run of lighter questions, once people are already replying to you rather than only watching.
What is the best advice anyone has given you?
Why ask it
The common failure is a stock quotation rather than an actual memory. If you want the memory, add "and who said it," which forces people to attach the advice to a real person and changes the answers completely.
What would you do with a completely free Saturday?
Why ask it
The hypothetical does the work that a question about actual weekends cannot, because real weekends are full of obligations people do not want to list. Answers here tend to reveal what someone is short of: sleep, company, quiet.
What skill would you start if you had a free afternoon every week?
Why ask it
Different from asking what someone wants to learn, which invites an aspirational answer they have given before. Attaching a specific slot of time makes people name something plausible, and a few will realise mid-reply that they do have the afternoon.
What is your favourite way to show someone you care?
Why ask it
More personal than it first looks, and the answers split neatly between people who name a gesture and people who name words. Fewer replies than the lighter questions, and the ones you get are usually worth answering properly in chat.
What is something you are grateful for today?
Why ask it
Runs the risk of feeling like an assignment, so it works best when your own answer is specific and unglamorous rather than uplifting. "Today" keeps it from becoming a list of family and health, which is what the undated version produces.
What are you proud of from the last month?
Why ask it
The time window matters twice over: it stops people reaching for a life achievement, and it gives permission for something small. Expect some replies about ordinary maintenance, getting to an appointment, finishing a form, and treat those as the point rather than as modesty.
What is a question you wish people asked you?
Why ask it
The one to end on, because it hands the story back to your audience and often gets you a question worth posting next. Do not run it cold: it needs an audience already used to replying, or it returns nothing at all.
Getting replies on a story
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What makes a story question work
Answer it yourself first
Put your own answer on the frame, or on the frame before. A question with no answer attached reads as a survey; one with your answer attached reads as a conversation you have already started.
Bound it in time
This week, today, at the moment, in the last month. Unbounded questions ask people to search their whole life for a best answer, and most give up rather than settle.
Keep it to one line
It has to be readable in the few seconds a story is on screen, at a size that fits over an image. If the question needs two lines of small text, it is a chat message, not a story.
Reply to the replies
Story answers arrive privately, one at a time. Answering them individually is what turns one question into twenty conversations, and it is the reason people answer the next one.
Ordering a run of questions
- Start light, with something answerable in two words or a photo.
- Once people are replying, move to questions that need a sentence.
- Save anything reflective for last, when only the interested part of your audience is still watching.
- Do not post two questions in the same story unless the second is a follow-up to the first.
- Leave several days between questions, or the replies drop off sharply.
What kills a story question
Asking for something private in public
Story replies are private, but people do not always feel that way when the question is on your public frame. Anything about money, relationships or health belongs elsewhere.
Questions with a right answer
If your own answer is clearly the one being fished for, replies dry up. Ask things you would find genuinely interesting to be wrong about.
Leaving replies unanswered
The fastest way to make the next question fail is to ignore the answers to this one. Even a reaction is better than nothing.
Recycling the same question
Your regular viewers notice. Keep a note of what you have asked, or vary the time frame so at least the answer changes.