Writing fun question box answers: 5 ways to turn followers into fans

Good answers bring senders back

One thing that's easy to overlook when you run a question box is the quality of your answers. People tend to focus on tricks for collecting questions or on how to guide people from social media, but whether a sender thinks "I want to send another question" depends a lot on how satisfied they are with the answer they got.

Think about it. Even if it's anonymous, sending a question takes some mental effort. The sender thinks about what to ask, polishes the wording, and presses the Send button. If the answer they get back is a single word like "Yes" or "No," how would they feel? The letdown of "I went to the trouble of sending that" can sap their motivation to send the next question.

On the other hand, if a sender gets a thoughtful, fun answer to their question, they'll probably feel that asking you questions is enjoyable. You can hope for a cycle where this experience turns them into a regular, their questions lead to even more interesting Q&As, and other followers who see them start sending questions too. The quality of your answers is the starting point of a good cycle for your question box.

Technique 1: read the intent behind the question

If someone asks "What's your favorite food?" and you answer "Curry," you're only responding to the surface of the question. What the sender wants to know may be your personality and values, seen through your taste in food.

When you read the intent behind a question and answer one step deeper, it becomes easier to go beyond what the sender expected. "Curry. I especially love the real kind made from whole spices, and my hobby is spending 3 hours making it on weekends. My favorite step is frying the onions for 40 minutes, and I can't get enough of the moment they turn golden brown." This answer tells the reader not only about a food preference but also about a passion for cooking, how the person spends weekends, and how much they care about details.

When you receive a question, first try spending just 3 seconds thinking, "What did this person want to know when they sent this?" The difference between a surface-level answer and one that picks up on the intent comes from those 3 seconds of thought.

That said, not every question needs a deep reading. For a light question like "What are you doing right now?" a light answer feels natural. What matters is a sense for adjusting the depth of your answer to match the tone of the question.

Technique 2: add a specific story

An answer that includes a specific story tends to be more fun and more memorable than an abstract one.

If someone asks "How do you relieve stress?" you could answer "Walking." Or you could answer "When I can't sleep at 2 a.m., I relieve stress by walking to the convenience store and back, which takes 30 minutes. I do it even in the middle of winter. On the way back I buy a hot can of coffee, and the time I spend drinking it in front of the vending machine while looking up at the sky is when I feel most relaxed." Readers get a completely different impression from these two answers.

One reason specific stories work is that they put a picture in the reader's head. The word "walking" alone doesn't bring up any image, but with concrete details like "2 a.m.," "convenience store," "hot can of coffee," and "in front of the vending machine," readers can more easily imagine the scene by matching it to their own experiences. This imagining can sometimes lead them to feel drawn into your answer and to relate to it.

Your story doesn't have to be dramatic. A small moment from everyday life is enough. In fact, the smaller it is, the more it can create a sense of closeness, as in "This person lives an everyday life just like mine."

Technique 3: ask the sender a question back

When you end your answer with a question for the sender, a one-way Q&A can turn into a conversation. Questions like "What do you think?" or "Have you had the same experience?" give the sender a reason to send their next question.

If someone asks "Any movie recommendations?" you might reply, "Interstellar. I think it's a rare movie that makes you understand the relativity of time through emotion. By the way, are you into sci-fi? Or do you like a different genre?" Then the sender may want to send a follow-up like "I like sci-fi too, but actually horror is my favorite..."

This technique can be what changes your question box from a Q&A tool into a tool for conversations that don't happen in real time. Instead of ending after one question, questions and answers keep linking together. This chain helps deepen your relationship with the sender.

One caution is that putting a question in every answer comes across as pushy. Adding a question back about once every 3-4 answers, where it fits the flow naturally, is about the right frequency.

Technique 4: show honesty and weakness

An honest answer tends to reach your followers' hearts more than a perfect one. When someone asks "What are you bad at?" answering "Nothing in particular" is less appealing than answering "I'm hopeless at getting up in the morning. Even if I set 5 alarms, I turn them all off and go back to sleep. I know it's a fatal flaw for a working adult." The second answer feels human and charming.

In psychology there's a concept called the "reciprocity of self-disclosure." It's the tendency for one person's self-disclosure to make the other person more likely to open up to a similar degree. Applied to a question box, if the owner honestly shows weaknesses or failures in their answers, senders may feel "It's okay to be honest with this person" and send deeper questions.

Of course, there are weaknesses you shouldn't show. You should avoid anything involving personal information, content that hurts others, and content that is overly negative. To draw the line between "human imperfection" and "information you shouldn't share," ask yourself: "If lots of people I don't know read this answer, would it cause harm to me or to others?"

Technique 5: think about the structure of answers that get shared

When you share an answered Q&A on social media, whether it catches people's eyes on their timeline depends on the structure of the answer. Answers that tend to get shared have some features in common.

First, they present the conclusion or a surprise in the first 1-2 lines. On a social media timeline, sometimes only the first few lines are shown. If the opening doesn't make people think "Oh?", they tend to scroll right past it. Openings like "Actually, I have the same worry" or "I get asked this a lot, but the answer is surprising" can make people want to read on.

Second, they include something readers can relate to as their own. Content that makes people think "aruaru" (that's so relatable) and experiences that make them feel "Me too" tend to spread through reposts and when people share them to their Stories.

Third, they're a reasonable length. If an answer is too short, it doesn't carry enough information, and if it's too long, it won't fit in the share image. For answers you want people to read as a share image, it's a good idea to keep them on the short side.

You don't need to write every answer with sharing in mind. But having a Q&A now and then that makes you think "I want to share this one" can help your question box grow. When you write an answer, try picturing for just a moment, "How would someone feel if they saw this Q&A on their timeline?" That awareness leads to answers that are more likely to get shared.