CHAPTER 10

Should You Ask a Lot of Questions?

Entenmann’s is a baked goods company that started in Brooklyn, New York, around the turn of the twentieth century. The company has since grown to become a national brand, and it has created and discontinued tons of products over the years. It has a passionate fan base, whose loyalties sometimes lie with a specific tasty treat rather than with the brand itself.

Recently, an Entenmann’s fan asked, “Why won’t you bring back the Banana Crumb Cake?” on the Entenmann’s Facebook wall. He posted this same question three times in one day. He was so distressed about the Banana Crumb Cake being discontinued, he actually began to rally fans to boycott his previously beloved Entenmann’s brand. He wrote letters, created a petition, and posted all over the Facebook wall—where oh where had the Banana Crumb Cake gone?

Entenmann’s is a forward-thinking company when it comes to social media, and it realizes that its customers are its most valued assets. Yet, the Banana Crumb Cake had not been selling in great enough volume to continue production, and Entenmann’s had to give it the axe. So what’s a brand to do? Senior executives at Entenmann’s determined that the company would, in fact, resume production if sales warranted the return of the Banana Crumb Cake.

They placed a call to the disgruntled fan and let him know that they would be posting a poll on Entenmann’s Facebook page so that fans could vote on whether or not to restart production of the cake. If 1,000 or more people voted to “bring back Banana Crumb,” well then, he would have his way. This proposal empowered the customer and consumers everywhere, providing them with a stake in Entenmann’s product line.

The next day, Entenmann’s posted the question on its Facebook page: “Should we bring back the Banana Crumb Cake?” The fan (and anyone else who wanted to) had ample time to rally friends around answering the question. Not only did this provide the Entenmann’s brand team with free insight into its current customers but it also ended up exposing many new people to the brand and its Facebook page.

Wondering what the results of the poll were? It turned out that the Banana Crumb Cake fan was not alone in his love for the product. Many fans voted to bring back the Banana Crumb Cake, and today, it is one of Entenmann’s bestselling products. Moreover, Entenmann’s has initiated a “Bring It Back” campaign through which Facebook fans vote on new products to bring back to market. Plus, the man continued to be a vocal fan of Entenmann’s and enjoy their other products. One public question turned a disgruntled fan into one of the company’s most positive and vocal fans today.

WHY ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS?

People responsible for social media at organizations often lament, “Nobody’s responding to our posts on Facebook and Twitter.” Especially if you don’t have a large organization with many thousands of fans, getting responses to, or comments on, your content can be challenging. To combat this issue, start with the basics. Consider whether you would be more likely to respond to a question or a statement in a conversation. Think about your reaction to the following two sentences:

  •   This book has provided valuable insight to you so far.

  •   Has this book provided valuable insight to you so far?

The first statement is likely to elicit a nod, a shake of your head, or the thought to yourself, “Eh? It’s alright so far. Let me keep reading.” No matter what, it’s a light response, if any. The sentence also probably leads you to believe the author is a bit cocky and presumptuous for telling you what he wants you to think.

The second sentence, the question, is likely to yield a more definite response, such as, “Yes, I love it!” or “No, there’s nothing here I didn’t know already.” Furthermore, the question conveys the impression that the author is genuinely interested in learning the answer and doesn’t presume to know it.

In a traditional advertising and marketing setting, marketers have limited time and space to get their message out there. They have to tell customers what they want them to think. They can’t afford to use that time and space to ask questions. In a social media setting, however, the opposite is true. You can’t afford to tell people what you want them to think because they will not respond positively. Now, since you have unlimited time and space to help shape their perception, you can cater directly to them, learn about what they are looking for in a product or service, and understand what they like, dislike, want, and expect from your company. The way to meet this goal is to ask lots of questions—genuine ones, of course—and actually listen to the answers.

What Is the Marketing Value of Questions?

Put on your consumer caps, and think about what companies say to you across marketing channels and how it makes you feel. Advertisers have always sought to make an emotional connection with their customers. Consider what better builds an emotional connection: when advertisers tell you about their companies, or when they ask you your opinions about them. Asking questions creates marketing value in these four ways:

1.    Helping you guide the social media conversation without appearing forceful

2.    Allowing you to become consumer-centric marketers rather than brand-centric marketers

3.    Demonstrating that you value openness, honesty, and feedback (three values customers and prospects universally hold in high regard)

4.    Showing that you care about what your customers have to say

Questions build an emotional connection between you and the consumer, and they generate conversations about your customers’ pain points, problems, and needs. As customers have discussions with each other, and with you, you’ll gain mindshare, increasing the likelihood that they’ll turn to you for your products and services when needed.

What Is the Insight Value of Questions?

Questions on social networks lead to conversations that clearly have marketing value. But even if they didn’t have such value, the insight you can glean alone from them is immense. Companies’ research and development (R&D) departments routinely spend many thousands or even millions of dollars on programs, such as focus groups, surveys, and customer marketing research, to gain insight into their customers or prospects. Yet, once you’ve built up a following on Facebook, Twitter, or both, you can tap into these communities on a regular basis without spending a dime! These online networks are living, breathing focus groups. You can ask your customers questions about your products and services, about their perceptions and attitudes, their opinions, their knowledge of competitors, and an infinite number of other topics. Try asking simple questions such as the following to start:

  •   What can we do better?

  •   What were your best and worst experiences with us?

  •   What do you think of our recent advertisement?

Eventually you can also cut or limit the traditional focus group and research activity you do offline, saving money and providing you with a direct, real-time audience whose responses to your questions are almost instant.

In an age of growing transparency, asking questions publicly to gather insight is best. But what if you want to gather insights privately? Even in that case, you can create a private survey online and then solicit people to participate through your social communities. And when you solicit people, in order to generate a better response rate, ask a question! “Who’d like to participate in a survey about us?” will yield a better response than “Click here to participate in a survey about us” every time. Remember, questions have a natural tendency to elicit answers; statements do not.

WHAT DID LIKEABLE MEDIA’S RESEARCH FIND ABOUT QUESTIONS AND FACEBOOK ENGAGEMENT?

Our team at Likeable Media did a study on what makes a Facebook page update worthy of being liked by someone and the kinds of posts that generate the highest engagement rates. To find these answers, we looked at a month’s worth of Facebook status updates for 10 of our clients ranging from independently owned Internet startups to national restaurant chains.

In 9 out of 10 cases, the interaction rate for status updates that posed a question directly to fans was above the average rate for informational posts. In 10 out of 10 cases, engagement rates for posts that talked exclusively about the company without posing a question were below the overall average. In terms of actual numbers, posts that posed a question or otherwise requested immediate feedback were up to six times more engaging than straight informational posts. Those posts asking fans to like the update were up to 5.5 times more engaging. On one page, we actually found a “like this” update that was 26.6 times more engaging than the page’s informational posts.

Of course, if you simply post random questions, having nothing to do with your customers or products, those posts won’t have much conversational staying power or engagement over the long term. The challenge is to find questions that encourage thought from your fan base. Though daunting, try asking customers what they think of a new product. Even more direct, pose questions inquiring about things consumers don’t like about your latest products or services—you might get some real feedback you can use, or you still might get people sharing the coveted “I love everything about you” comment.

Ask people to like statuses if they agree with a point your brand is stressing. Finally, phrase updates in a way that’s relevant to the values of your organization, and don’t forget to help facilitate the conversation in a way that is not too sales heavy!

WHAT IS THE POWER OF CROWDSOURCING?

Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks that are traditionally performed by employees at an organization to a large group of people or community (a crowd) through an open call.

The beauty of crowdsourcing is threefold:

  •   First, you find great solutions to problems from the people who know you best: your customers.

  •   Second, you tap into the wisdom of the crowd—as the saying goes, many heads are often better than one.

  •   Finally, most important, you get vested interest in the outcomes from a potentially huge group of people who are all waiting to potentially become your newest customers.

Crowdsourcing is the ultimate question. It’s saying to your community, “We have a challenge. Can you help?”

Lay’s Do Us a Flavor Contest

In 2012, Lay’s, the international potato chip company, celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary by crowdsourcing a new flavor. It began with a simple ask to its customers and fans: “Do Us a Flavor.” Lay’s fans were asked to submit their ideas for the next flavor for a chance to win $1 million and 1 percent of the new chip’s sales. In just a few weeks, Lay’s received millions of submissions, and the company then narrowed down the submissions to a few finalists. From there, the public voted on the next potato chip flavor, and Karen Weber-Mendham’s Cheesy Garlic Bread won.

The money Lay’s spent was far less than R&D would have cost, and since so many customers were involved throughout the process, when the new flavor launched, it had a built-in audience of more than 3.8 million people who had participated in the process to create it. Who wouldn’t want to launch a new product that 3.8 million people already felt they had connected to before it even hit the shelves?

Tria Beauty

Involving your community in product development doesn’t have to come in the form of a formal contest or large-scale campaign. Sometimes, with an engaged customer base, asking a simple question can garner intel—and an opportunity to surprise and delight your fans.

Tria Beauty, the revolutionary light-based skin care brand behind products that offer physician-quality skin care in convenient and affordable ways, was gearing up to introduce a new line of its flagship product: the Hair Removal Laser (HRL) 4X. Before the summer 2013 launch, the company asked its fans to vote on which colors the new version of the device should be offered in. Like the Entenmann’s example above, Tria posed a simple question the fans could easily answer: “Which of these colors would you like to see in our new HRL 4X Colors line?” And Tria watched the responses roll in.

What Tria did next was what made this a special case. After announcing to the community that the brand had selected the two most-voted-on colors to be turned into products (the unnamed Color 6 and Color 7), they asked another question: “What would you name these colors?” What was simply an engaging question to generate conversation and excitement for the upcoming summer launch ended with Billi Smith commenting on February 4, 2013: “I wanna call her peony <3.” When the Colors lines launched in July of that same year, the pink device carried the official name of Peony. Tria Beauty gave a special shout out to Billi Smith that day.

HOW SHOULD YOU ASK DISCUSSION-GENERATING QUESTIONS?

Crowdsourcing might work well when you have the right project and enough of an existing community to make it work, but asking questions through social media outlets on a regular basis can also keep fans interested, engaged, and having fun. It’s important to stay creative, innovative even, to keep your customers interested and returning to your Facebook page or following your tweets regularly. You need to utilize your customers’ growing mindshare and get them involved by posing intriguing questions that can create a full-on discussion.

What Talk Happens at Omaha Steaks’ Table?

Omaha Steaks wanted to keep people talking by asking questions of its online community at Facebook.com/OmahaSteaks. However, after just a few weeks, asking questions about steaks, and even food, got repetitive fairly quickly. Omaha Steaks wanted a way to stimulate interesting conversation without making it irrelevant.

We determined that with any great meal, there’s good conversation around the table, whether at a restaurant, at home with an Omaha Steaks product, or around the “virtual table” that is social media. We responded by designing “Table Talk.” Table Talk is a weekly feature through which Omaha Steaks asks its fans a question that is likely to stimulate discussion, whether at the dinner table or online. The topics are occasionally about food, sometimes steaks, but they are most often about other topics likely to elicit interesting, lively conversation. The questions are often relevant to the time of year or holiday season, and they aim to always be interesting to the Omaha Steaks core audience.

Here are a few examples of questions asked at Table Talk, pulled right from its Facebook page:

  •   “Table Talk time! Some of us are seasoned Halloween veterans while others are still lacking ideas. So, what’s the best Halloween costume that you or someone you know has ever worn?”

  •   “Time for Table Talk! It’s officially premiere time for the Fall TV lineups! What new or returning shows are you looking forward to the most?”

  •   “Time for some Table Talk! Did you know that New York City was once temporarily the United States capital? Have you ever visited the Big Apple? Did you catch any shows or just see the sights? Share here!”

None of the Table Talk questions are about the brand or what they do, but all of them stimulate conversation, creating hundreds of comments in discussions at times. Why bother, if you’re Omaha Steaks? Remember, more likes or comments on any Facebook content drive that content to the top of people’s News Feeds, leading to more impressions, and more top-of-mind awareness for Omaha Steaks for thousands of fans.

What are the concrete results of the Table Talk feature? Even without explicitly selling steaks to new customers, Table Talk has led to a higher frequency of annual purchases from the average customer.

WHY SHOULD YOU ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS, AGAIN?

If social media is a conversation, you can’t possibly be an active participant without asking questions. Asking your customers, prospects, and fans questions will get people talking and keep them talking, creating actual dialogue. And, ideally, they’ll be talking about you in a positive light.

Asking questions on Facebook and other social networks can help you gain valuable insights about your organization, cut R&D costs, and gain access to ideas you may not have had from the people who know you best—your customers and prospects. Crowdsourcing allows you to ask the ultimate question of your community—“Can you help us?”—and builds a massive number of stakeholders in your success while providing your community with a valuable and often fun activity. Questions demonstrate your organization’s fundamental openness to hearing answers, whether you like the answers or not. Can you think of any better way to engage your customers in dialogue online than asking questions?