This past week, Facebook rolled out their new Questions feature. As the page administrator for our local teachers' union, I'd been eagerly awaiting its release. After a day or so of toying with it, I've come to the realization that while the application functions, at this stage in its release Questions is geared more towards individuals than brands, and page owners will have to rethink their strategy to overcome some of its limitations.
When you first use Facebook Questions as a page admin, the questions appear on your page's wall in a different format than a status update. The question itself is hyperlinked, and your page's fans can't like, comment or share the question within the framework of a normal status update.
Problem 1: No edge, no rank
The direct result of this is that your question won't get pushed up into your fans' newsfeeds through Facebook's EdgeRank formula when you first publish it. Nor will the number of fans that answer the question or comment on the question itself within the application count towards the Feedback percentage calculated by Insights. This means the initial question that automatically posts to your page's wall will not show "above the fold" in your fan's newsfeed.
Solution: Share the question to your page's wall
In order to make sure your fans see the question and work within the Matrix that is EdgeRank, you as the page admin have to share the question in a status update. However, when you take this action, if your fans like or comment on your update, it still only counts toward the update, not the question.
Problem 2: Deceptive answer counts
If your page's fans actually see the question when it is automatically published, they will only see the number of their friends that have actually answered the question. They have to actually click through to the question to see the total number of people that have actually answered the question and do a mouse-over of the different question options.
Solution: Use your brand's influencers to share the question
We all have influencers within our page that are more active than others. These are the individuals that whether or not they are internal or external influencers are truly brand ambassadors. One strategy is to get them to use the "Ask Friends" to further increase the impressions and activity your question will garner on your page.
So you've let me give my two cents. What do you think?