Don’t underestimate the power of asking questions.

Many people on LinkedIn don’t ask questions, they answer them.

Asking questions is one of the best ways to engage others on LinkedIn. Asking questions has advantages over answering them. Learn how and why in this blog article. Many people on LinkedIn don’t ask questions, they answer them.

You should realize that when you answer questions you really only get to engage one person, the questioner. However, when you ask questions you have the ability to engage many.

The engagement is easy as you can use their answer as the focal point for the start of the conversation. You can complement them on their opinion or ask a sub question, or even just investigate them and start a conversation re your interest in them.

If you chose your topics correctly you can get 20, 30, or even more people to participate in your question. This gives you the ability to start a conversation with each of them.

One of the keys to asking questions is choosing a hot topic. In almost every field of endeavor there are subjects that are highly contested or disputed. There are also new trends where only the early adopters are participating. These are subjects that will get you lots of responses and opportunities to engage others in conversations.

There is another opportunity in asking questions that most people don’t realize. Although I would be the first to tell you that when you ask a question you don’t want to use the LinkedIn feature that sends the questions to your connections, I do suggest that you can use your question to engage people that you don’t know.

How? By going to the profile of people that are expert or likely knowledgeable of your subject and sending them an email via the “Send Message” link and asking if they might provide their input based on their expertise.

This message should be similar to an invitation in that you tell the person why you would like their opinion and give them a great reason for selecting them to ask.

If you are careful and very professional you should not have any problems. And though some may not participate some will.

You could also reverse this process in an interesting way by researching a person (or group of people) first – then asking a question that would be perfect for them. The invite them to answer your question is the way suggested above.

Don’t underestimate the power of asking questions. - ( 4 Comments » )

Stan Piskorski @ 11:02 am March 3, 2010

Perhaps the only thing to add is how annoying it is when someone answers a question with a blatant sales pitch.

When people ask for advice, give them advice. If the advice has value, the asker will (or at least should) seek out the source.

These blatant pitches are particularly annoying from “consultants” in the sales training field. I’d recommend against hiring anyone who used a response to a question as an opportunity to give a pitch.

Flyn @ 11:55 am March 3, 2010

Stan —

As to using questions to make “pitches” that would not be my recommendation. I would use the questions to engage those I don’t know and to then develop relationships that will eventually put me in a position to move closer and get opportunities.

I probably should have expanded on that in this post for those who don’t know my philosophy. I don’t believe in taking any kind of a prospecting approach.

Farzad Wafapoor @ 10:46 am March 10, 2010

One side-effect (and secret) of asking questions on LinkedIn is showing up in search results. So you should phrase your questions carefully.
As an experiment, go on google and search for “what role does luck play in Sales” which is one of Flyn’s questions. Notice the first result.

I also agree with Flyn that pitching in the question could come across as unethical. Answer section on LinkedIn (or any networking site for that matter) should be used for building relationships not prospecting.

This is a great discussion for LI, I think.

Gerold Braun @ 3:06 pm March 31, 2010

Asking a question on LinkedIn is really good advice, thank you. And the visibility gain on google .. very interesting, Farzad.

I use a similiar tactic in the offline-world (once told by one of my early bosses): When sitting in a talk-auditorium ask an educated question in the q & a session. Start with: “i am whit ..” and many people will recognize you afterwards in the “networking” session.

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