Facebook Questions … and some answers

Last week Facebook announced the beta version of its Facebook Questions. The idea of this new feature is to allow users to pose a question, whether it is through Photo Questions or Opinion Polls, with the added benefit of using tagging.

It has never been more exciting to be part of the Facebook revolution than now, especially for marketers, brand managers and even small business owners, looking to maximise conversations with friends and fans.

Late last week, Facebook moved out of beta phase and officially launched Facebook Questions ‚ a feature designed to truly amplify the power of your network. Facebook Questions gives users the opportunity to pose a question ‚ be it through Photo Questions or Polling with the added benefit of being able to use tagging and topic exploration aimed at making Q&A discovery easier.

But what does this mean for marketers? The opportunity to ask your friends ‚ and by extension their friends and their friends’ friends ‚ questions about their preferences, start a collective intelligence gathering exercise that could influence the outcome of your next product launch, product development or service offering.

Facebook describes Questions as the opportunity to learn from your friends, see where people stand and share what you know and most importantly, get answers from people you trust.

As well as being able to ask and answer questions, functionality has been built into the feature, that allows users to follow specific questions for updates and new answers.

But, where to from here? Despite no longer being in beta, Questions is being rolled out in a phased approach. If, like us, you just can’t wait for it to become generally available, go to http://www.facebook.com/questions