24 Comments

Yes. The question must be open ended and must be engaging. People ignore boring questions and a lot of creators are being very lazy with the question they ask. The question must be specific to your post or note and make it personal for the reader.

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When you actually listen with intention, it’s almost impossible to make a “boring” comment

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This was so so so helpful. I've been working toward posting on my substack, Persephone's Stories, every Tuesday. Each week, I concentrate on something specific: week 1, book review; week 2, Persephone in the arts; week 3, inspiring stories; week 4, an excerpt of my own work. I find I get the most engagement on the more difficult stories I'm telling about my own experiences, especially those that reveal something about me. As you've said, there's less engagement when I ask generic questions. Thanks for your suggestions about growing the conversation. I'll be trying those out in the coming weeks.

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Looking forward to your Substack, Suzanne. Sounds so interesting. And the theme is right up my alley now that we moved in Greece too :)

Try gamifying it as well. instead of a question, ask your audience to share a similar story or related one. Who knows?

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Where in Greece, Ana? I'm spending the entire month of July in Syros with my family!

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I'm bringing my family to Greece this summer! Can't wait! We plan to go sailing in the Cyclades. Let me know if there's something you think we shouldn't miss if you're familiar with the area!

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Thank you, Ana!

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This was so helpful thanks so much for sharing! It is definitely something I want to improve on and these tips will really help.

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so glad to hear. Thanks for sharing

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The longer I live the more I understand at a deep level--Life is about asking the right quesitions!

Thank you!

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thank you for listening

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This was so helpful! Do you ever go back to old posts to ask better questions at the end? Or should I just focus on writing better questions moving forward?

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oh, that's a good one. If I had more time in my hands I would also go back on my older posts. But I now strive to make each future post a little better.

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Valuable stuff Ana, thanks!

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you’re more than welcome

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EXCELLENT POST KEEP IT UP

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hey, thanks

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I’m here to promote and really figure out what to do here and get the General idea of what I can do to have a community here like I had on Instagram.

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What a wonderful resource-packed session! Thank you for this one, Ana. I write on vritant.substack.com and it's all about a teenager navigating his life and building products that delivers value and help people along the way in his free time.

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oh no - I shrug. My questions are big fat shrugs.

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This was so helpful, Ana. Thank you for sharing!

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how do you prove legitimacy?

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Thanks for the great advice.

I just sent out my first newsletter The Writers' Cafe. It feels very much like the herb seeds I planted last week; very little showing apart from a little green colour poking through the soil :-)

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learning to reframe my posts as questions.

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