How to Ask a Question on LinkedIn

By Joel Elad from LinkedIn For Dummies, 2nd Edition

LinkedIn allows you to post questions to be answered by the community. Your LinkedIn question is available for up to seven days from the time you post your question on the site. You can always reopen your question later for more answers, but typically one week is enough for members of the community to start responding.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before you, ask a question on LinkedIn Answers:

Is your question really a comment or an opinion? It can be tempting to post an opinion, a comment, or something designed to get a response, but that’s not the intent of this function. Try to pose a question that can be answered by an expert.
Is your question nontrivial or useful? Remember, the goal of LinkedIn Answers is to exchange useful information that matters to other people using the site. Try to keep the question focused on something business or professionally related.
Is your question worded clearly? If you’re hoping for some helpful replies, people need to clearly understand what it is you want to know. You can provide additional details about your question, but make sure the actual question is clear, concise, and simply put.
Is your question an appropriate question? Some people try to post spam or generic advertising messages, or simply make negative, philosophical, bizarre, or highly personal statements.

LinkedIn prohibits using the Answers page for posting jobs, announcing your job search, or openly requesting people to connect with you. If you post such things, the questions will be deleted, and your account may be subject to suspension or closure.

After you come up with your question, take a moment to consider the best way to present your question, so as many people as possible provide useful responses for you.

Provide as much detail as you can: After you pose your question, you can (and should) fill out a details section that lets people know exactly what kind of answer you’re hoping to receive.
Use the right keywords in your question: If you need an expert in a certain subject matter, make sure the right keywords of that subject are in the question so it shows up in search results.
Use the right category(ies) for your question: Go through the different categories, see what previous questions match your question the best, and keep in mind that you can assign up to two categories per question in case you need information that doesn’t fit neatly into one specific category.
Keep your question as simple as possible: People are typically reluctant to answer complex questions, or they might answer a minor question and ignore the major one you really wanted an answer for.
Engage your audience: Sometimes, the point of your question is to make your audience members think about a topic and share their opinions or advice in that situation. Therefore, provide some focus to your question but leave it open-ended to generate different perspectives when people answer your question.
Keep your question clean and readable: Before you post your question, take a minute or two to make sure the question and detail sections flow and are visually clean. Reword your question if necessary to make that first sentence as logical as possible to anyone who would read it.