Though some platforms like Tiktok and Instagram have taken centre stage this year, Snapchat is still a relevant platform with an enthusiastic audience. There are still 238 million daily active users, and the average user spends about 30 minutes a day on the platform.
Businesses who are trying to reach young audiences (particularly Millennials, Gen Z and younger) should consider staying active on the platform and leveraging all of its latest and greatest features to keep users engaged. Â
For the past year, one of the biggest features on Snapchat was the ability to ask questions or to answer them thanks to a third-party tool that allowed users to submit anonymous responses to the brand.Â
In this post, weâre going to look at how you can use Snapchat Story questions for businesses, whether you want to promote your own brand or your clientsâ.Â
What Are Snapchat Story Questions?
Snapchat Stories can be made up of multiple Snaps, which can be images or very short videos that are available for 24 hours after posting.Â
Over the last year, a recent trend has emerged where you can ask a sticker to your Story that lets users send an anonymous message to your account. You can respond to these comments in your own Stories.Â
Image source: TechCrunch
You can either ask your followers questions, or encourage them to ask you anything that you can respond to directly in your Stories. Â
How to Ask Snapchat Stories Questions
You really have two options here.
If you really want to keep it simple, you can add text to an image with Snapchatâs native in-app editor that encourages users to answer a question or submit their own questions. You can then monitor your inbox closely, and then write up the Q&As in some way in your Stories.Â
The much more common choice is to use a third-party tool, like the currently popular tool called YOLO. This is a separate, standalone app that youâll need to download and then connect to your Snapchat account by logging in with your Snap credentials.Â
Though it uses a third-party tool, it feels like a seamless integration that looks like the Instagram âQuestionsâ sticker. Users are able to tap on the text box, type in it, and submit their response. Once you receive the response, you can respond to it in your Stories publicly.
How to Use Yolo to Ask & Answer Snapchat Stories Questions
After Yolo is set up and synced to your Snapchat account, itâs a straightforward process.Â
Change the text in the âquestionâ box to whatever you want your audience to respond to. You can ask them a question, or you can prompt them to ask you something. You have the option to be specific (âwhat do you want to know about our new product line?â) to more generic (âask us anything!â).Â
You can change the colour of the text box, so consider what image youâll use in the background. Once youâre happy with the question, click the yellow âShareâ button in the bottom right corner.
This will pull up your text box. You can then add an image or video to the background, and add all of your standard Story elements. It never hurts to use arrows to encourage users to answer questions or to pay attention to pay parts of the video.Â
Publish it to your Stories, and then wait! Users can swipe up and then enter a response. When you receive anonymous responses, youâll get a notification and you can view it in the Yolo app.
You can respond directly, and then publish the reply in a new Story. You can add another image or video in the background with your response.Â
3 Great Use Cases for Stories Questions
Snapchat Story questions are an excellent way to increase on-platform engagement and to establish relationships with your target audience.
There are a few great use cases that you may want to consider, including the following:
- Hosting Q&As. Giving users unfettered access to ask whatever theyâd like about your business can be exciting. They can learn a ton about your brand and receive what feels like inside information in exchange.Â
- Gathering feedback. Anonymous feedback can be invaluable, and hearing what people have to say about your brand, a product, or even what they want to see on the platform is a fantastic opportunity.Â
- Coming up with new content ideas. When people ask questions, it means thereâs a need for information. This sounds obvious, but in some cases you can take these questions and turn them into more long-form content, including YouTube videos, blog posts, and other educational resources. Â
Final Thoughts: Story Questions Best Practices
When youâre using YOLO to garner anonymous responses to prompts that you put out into the world, itâs important to know a few best practices to help you get the results you want! Keep the following in mind:
- Be prepared for trolls. Businesses have public accounts, and trolls are on every platform. People may send you insulting messages or ask offensive questions. Just ignore them, and if needed you can block them altogether.
- Try to ask specific questions when you can. The more specific you are, the more likely users will be to engage. You can even ask âdo you have any questionsâ following educational stories content or announcements.
- Respond quickly. Picking at least 3-5 responses every time you ask a question to respond to in your Stories is a good practice. It shows users that youâre reading the questions and it keeps them engaged long-term. And if you see someone who repeatedly participates, try to answer their question whenever possible.Â
Story questions truly are an exceptional way to engage your audience, and you can use the same prompts that you're using with Instagram's Questions sticker if you start to run out of ideas! Take advantage of the cross-platform engagement to reach more members of your target audience.Â
