Asking the Right Questions for Audience Engagement
Social engagement entails several things, such as making suggestions or help, listening and asking the right questions. If you successfully engage your audience, your indication will be “likes,” people sharing your content and comments through their social media channels.
The importance of engagement
When you share compelling, informative or engaging content other people, you have created the ingredients that go into a successful engagement campaign. One of the best ways of doing that is by posting a photo or video on Facebook. You will want to add a clear and concise message and a call to action. Any time you look at Facebook (for any of your Facebook friends), you will see a large number of photos posted. Photographs are a great tool for engaging people online. However, it is important to remember that merely posting a photo without the accompanying words will not give the people whom you are attempting to reach any ability to contact you. Without a call to action, it will stop right there.
The power of questions
Questions are an essential tool for engaging your audience. If you ask the right questions, you will be promoting a dialogue that will allow you to form relationships and subsequently develop those relationships. There are many different ways to make that happen.
People love being right
When it comes to engaging your audience, you can engage by agreeing with their opinions or by disagreeing with their opinions. Controversy is necessary for engagement. It just wouldn’t work if everyone always agreed with each other. The discussions that come out of it will be really boring. However, you need to make sure that the “arguing” that occurs is professional arguing and doesn’t give in to anything personal.
The fact of the matter is that when a person (whether it is you or one of the members of your audience) offers an opinion, that person most likely has the desire that you (or whoever else is involved in the discussion) to have his or her opinion accepted and agreed upon. When you are cultivating a discussion online, it is very important for you to keep in mind that people are diverse and they deserve to have their opinions respected and coveted. If you can accomplish that, you will be building a very strong, solid following.
Leading questions are an excellent idea
When you are in the process of deciding on which questions to present, you should bear in mind that leading questions are a good idea because they let your audience know up front specifically which answer you are expecting from them. This will make for a really good discussion but also it does not invite a great deal of controversy. Leading questions can be answered with “yes” or “no.” If your questions mostly receive positive responses, the engagement will be very strong.
Stay away from loaded questions
Loaded questions are generally questions that request feedback; however, they are deceptive. They are really looking for the person on the receiving end to agree with whatever the question is saying. The reason that you should stay away from loaded questions is that if the question’s recipient answers in a negative manner, there is a danger of the entire conversation going away.
Great questions don’t have a right or wrong answer
The best questions don’t have a right or wrong answer but they cause the person being asked the question to think. The question stimulates brains. This type of question will lead to an interesting discussion in most cases. It is also important to remember never to direct your question to a person. It should be about the topic, always. The last thing that you want to do is to make the person who is attempting to answer the question feel self-conscious. When people are offended, they often lash out.
Conclusion
Questions are wonderful because they stimulate interesting and fruitful discussions. They should never serve as your personal soap box. The purpose of the question and ensuing discussion is for everyone involved to benefit. If you see that it is turning into a competition among your audience members, it is perfectly appropriate for you to manage the situation and diffuse it. Remember, questions are a great tool and you should learn how to use them effectively and often. You need to make your audience feel that their opinions matter to you and the best way to do that is by asking them effective questions. Your questions should be well thought out and stimulating to anyone who reads them.
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Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Medical Communicators
Discussion: How Do You Engage Your Audience?
Carolyn’s comments are right on target. For any potential client, there is a huge difference between being told and being asked first. Asking the right questions opens up context for the information you need to share. “Ask, Don’t Tell” should guide every Expert-to-Audience communication.
By Chris Hill
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Linked User Group (Official Linked User Group)
Discussion: How Do You Engage Your Audience?
Be Genuine, Be yourself. If you are funny- be funny, if your not don’t. There is nothing more painful than when someone feels they have to take a canned joke out of the “break the ice” book.
I agree ask questions but also find out as much about the audience and their mission. Open ended questions that begin with What, Why, How. (if you ask if you had breakfast?
you get a yes or no. If you ask what did you have for breakfast you get a whole lot more)
To get and keep audience engaged you must of course present and elicit valuable information and you must make it entertaining. This keeps attention and encourages participation. Tell stories. Not only does it keep attention but provides thought anchors to recall your information. Be sure to investigate prior to the meeting about how the audience has in the past received information and what they liked and did not care for. I have watched many an audience perish under “death by PowerPoint.
Keep it real and sincere
Rich Lucia
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Inbound Marketers – For Marketing Professionals
Discussion: How Do You Engage Your Audience?
It’s a great question and one that is best focused on repeatedly. If an audience isn’t engaged, they simply won’t care what your content has to say. Creating engaging content is largely about knowing your audience. Understanding what matters to them is key to providing information that will keep them coming back. It also is tremendously helpful to provide diverse content in the form of multimedia posts, including but not limited to pictures, videos and infographics.
By Justin Belmont
Via LinkedIn Groups
Group: Inbound Marketers – For Marketing Professionals
Discussion: How Do You Engage Your Audience?
I think this article is right on about asking questions. Questions are key, but they are also only half of it. Listening is the other half. Too many brands ask the questions but don’t really listen. Listen and learn – then use those findings to build new fresh content that will capture and engage more users.
By Ben Bradley