Questions to Ask on Social Media
Questions to put to the people who already follow you, whether you run a small business, a newsletter, or a community account, with notes on what the replies tell you and which ones invite trouble in public.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What made you follow in the first place?
Why ask it
The answers name a specific post, a person who shared it, or a search, and that is information no analytics dashboard gives you cleanly. Expect it to skew toward recent followers, since older ones genuinely do not remember.
What were you trying to sort out when you found us?
Why ask it
Better than asking about interests, because it describes a problem rather than a preference. Answers in the same words repeatedly are worth stealing for your own descriptions, since that is the language your audience actually uses.
What are you working on this month?
Why ask it
A low-effort question that gets replies from lurkers, and the answers show you where your audience is in their year. Post it on a Monday: the same question on a Friday gets holiday plans instead.
What's the biggest thing you're stuck on right now?
Why ask it
This is the most useful question here, because a stuck point is a content plan. If three people describe the same blockage, that is your next post, and it is worth answering the first few replies properly in public.
What's the question about this you've felt too embarrassed to ask?
Why ask it
Naming the embarrassment is what unlocks it, and the answers are usually basic, which tells you your existing material assumes too much. Answer one carefully and without a joke, or nobody asks a second.
What's the last thing you saved from here, and did you actually use it?
Why ask it
The second half stops this being flattery. Saves are easy to earn and easy to overvalue, and finding out that people save things they never open should change what you make.
What did you try because of something you saw here, and how did it go?
Why ask it
Gets you results rather than compliments, including the ones that did not work, which are the more useful half. Ask for permission before repeating any of them, and never edit a mixed result into a success.
What's a small win you've had this month?
Why ask it
Sized deliberately low so ordinary weeks qualify, which is why it gets far more replies than a question about achievements. Reply to each one briefly: the point is that people are seen, not that you collect them.
Which of these two should we do next?
Why ask it
Two named options get a decision; an open call for ideas gets forty suggestions and no direction. Only ask if you will do the winner, because overriding a poll is remembered longer than the poll.
Who else should we be paying attention to?
Why ask it
Sending people elsewhere costs you nothing and gets you a reading list assembled by the audience. It also shows you who else they trust, which tells you what standard you are being compared to.
What's a piece of advice in this area that you think is wrong?
Why ask it
Complaining is easier than praising, so the replies come quickly, and they tell you which myths you keep having to correct. Steer answers toward the advice rather than the person who gave it, or the thread turns into a pile-on.
What do you wish someone had told you before you started?
Why ask it
Turns experienced followers into the ones giving the answers, which builds the thread without you writing it. Expect the same three things repeatedly, and treat that repetition as a signal rather than a coincidence.
What's the part of this you find genuinely boring?
Why ask it
People will name admin, maintenance, and record-keeping, which are the tasks quietly stopping them from getting anywhere. Naming boredom is easier than naming difficulty, so this often gets a franker answer than a question about problems.
What would you like more of from us?
Why ask it
Vague on purpose, and useful mainly for the volume of each request rather than the detail. Read it alongside the next question, because what people ask for and what they want less of rarely line up.
What should we do less of?
Why ask it
The one most accounts avoid asking, and the one worth reading twice. Do not defend anything in the replies: a public argument with a follower who answered honestly ends the usefulness of every future question you ask.
What nearly stopped you buying, joining, or signing up?
Why ask it
The hesitation is the answer: price, doubt about whether it applied to them, a form that broke. This is the single question most likely to change something practical, and the replies usually name a fixable thing.
Where do you actually want to hear from us: here, email, or somewhere else?
Why ask it
Answers tend to contradict the numbers, and that gap is the point: people say email while behaving like they prefer video. Take it as a signal about tolerance rather than an instruction, and check it against what they actually open.
What are you celebrating that nobody's noticed?
Why ask it
Invites people to mention something they would not post themselves, and the replies are often more substantial than the small wins question gets. Acknowledge each by name, since this only works once.
What should we cover that nobody covers?
Why ask it
Gets you the gaps, though half the answers will be things covered widely elsewhere and simply not found. That confusion is itself useful: it tells you what is hard to search for in your field.
What would make you unfollow?
Why ask it
Blunt, and it works because people are surprisingly specific: posting frequency, sales language, one kind of content. Ask it once a year at most, read every reply, and resist the urge to reply defensively to any of them.
Asking your audience things and using the answers
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you post the question
- Decide what you will do with the answers. A question you have no intention of acting on trains people that answering is pointless, and the next one performs worse.
- Ask one thing. Two questions in a post gets you answers to the shorter one and silence on the other.
- Answer it yourself in the post. It sets the length you want and stops the post reading as an empty request for engagement.
- Put the question in the first line. On most platforms everything after the second line is hidden behind a tap.
- Do not attach a question to a sales post. Asked next to a price, any question reads as marketing research and gets treated accordingly.
Public replies, private replies
Anything about money, mistakes, or health gets a fuller answer in a direct message than in a comment thread, so offer both routes when the question is sensitive: reply here or message me, whichever you prefer. The reverse is also true. Small wins, recommendations, and celebrations belong in public, because other people reading them is most of the value. If somebody answers a light question with something heavy, move to messages before responding at length, and do not quote it publicly afterward without asking.
Reading what comes back
- Count repeats, not volume. Three people describing the same blockage in different words matters more than thirty likes.
- Discount the first ten minutes. Early replies come from your most enthusiastic followers, who are the least representative part of your audience.
- Note who never answers. If the same six accounts respond every time, you are hearing from a committee rather than an audience, and it is worth asking the quiet majority something easier.
- Keep the wording. Copying the exact phrases people use is more useful than any summary you write from them.
- Compare what people ask for with what they open. Stated preference and behavior often disagree, and both are real.
Where these questions go wrong
- Asking what to improve and then arguing with the answers. It happens fast in public, and it costs you honest replies for a long time afterward.
- Turning a complaint thread loose without moderation. Questions about bad advice or what you should stop doing need someone watching the replies for the first few hours.
- Asking the same three prompts every week. Regulars stop answering, and their silence reads as a dead account to everyone else.
- Collecting answers and never referring to them again. Saying 'you asked for this in July' is worth more than any new campaign.
- Running a poll and then doing something else. One override is enough to make the next poll pointless.