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Recently, Facebook announced its latest application: Questions.  Although it has been launched, the application has yet to be released to everyone. However, once the Question application is fully underway it will be available to every Facebook user - to post your own questions or answer other user's questions - and not just of those people in your network...of everyone.

Most Facebookers have at one time or another asked a question in their status, hoping for responses from their friends and network.  The Questions application will offer a chance for users to ask these questions to the entire Facebook community which has just reached the 500 million user mark. Now of course, all those 500 million users probably aren't "active", but still that's a LOT of people available to answer your questions.

Either way, how can this tool be beneficial for the marketers on Facebook? I'm assuming it'll be similar to how they're able to use LinkedIn Answers to assist their marketing efforts.  The Facebook Questions application can offer marketers a great, easy tool to inquire about information and receive feedback from a huge network of valuable resources almost instantaneously. With features like polls and trending topics (Thank you Twitter), the possibilities can be endless for marketers.  Marketers can have a quick resource to reference for new and innovative ideas that are trending in the questions section.  Or they can create a quick poll that obtains instant feedback from a huge audience of users.

Email marketers can then use that information to better equip themselves with knowledge from an array of sources.

However, will it be tainted by users trying to sell or advertise or by childish users that offer silly, offensive answers?  I guess we'll have to wait and see, but hopefully Facebook can do a productive job in monitoring the answers posted because this could be a great marketing tool.

Although, Facebook Questions is not going to be a platform for advertising and selling products, email marketers are still able to use this tool.  From reading answers to questions or by observing trending topics, they may find inspiration when sending their next email - something they can use in their design or include in future content they send to their list. Besides that it offers another opportunity to engage with the community and by answering questions and contributing their company's expertise - email marketers  can become an educated resource that users can come to rely on.

For more information about the Questions tool and information on how to use it, I would check out this blog post.  It's extremely informative and takes an in-depth look at the application while offering insight into how it can be effective in the future.  Of course, you can always check out the Facebook blog for more details about new features coming to Facebook and other information.

Are your future social media marketing efforts going to include using the Facebook Questions tool?  It'll be interesting to see how companies take to this new feature.

Lavon Temple | Marketing