Questions & Answers

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Sometimes a good approach to getting authoritative figures in your domain to notice you is by asking intelligent questions within platforms that support it like LinkedIn Answers, Google Answers and Yahoo Answers; and inviting experts to share their insight on them.

Participating actively in Q&A in social sites has two fold advantages. First of all, asking questions brings the thought leaders in the industry to you. Well crafted questions that give an opportunity to experts to provide articulate and well processed answers to, work like a magnet to attracting industry leaders. Once they respond you can engage them in conversation and into your sales funnel. Inviting someone to answer your question is a way of honoring them and acknowledging their expertise - they usually always answer, which acts as a great ice breaker.

The second advantage is being one of those leaders. You can do this by answering questions that others have posted in your industry, to earn credibility and to get a chance to directly communicate with others. These questions provide an intellectual and conducive environment with mutual respect. A consequence of this mutual respect is that thought leaders start to shadow each other by answering the same questions and complimenting each other’s views. Sometimes people would ask questions that they know their peers will answer as a way of counter answering. This becomes an indirect form of blogging that results in good rapport with other thought leaders in your industry, making it easy to approach each other for collaboration, promotion or partnerships.

Just to give you an example, in our launch campaign we had to identify and network with prospective promoters. Within weeks we had to get as many interested promoters to sign up as possible. We used LinkedIn and Yahoo Answers as a mean to starting conversations with people. I had already added people to my network using the TopLinked database. I then asked questions and invited people from my network to answer them. After receiving answers, I sent private replies to them asking them to fill out a survey. The survey was a doorway to one of our sales funnels that led the participants to opting onto an email list to have the survey results emailed to them. This lead opened an email campaign that finished with a link to our promoter’s (partners) tour.

In many ways, it is a tribal thing. The process of asking and answering questions is a way of sharing with other tribes in a manner that proves you speak their language, and that you speak it well.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)