Follow, Chatter Answers
Follow, Chatter Answers was the mechanism for subscribing to updates on a question or thread inside the legacy Chatter Answers self-service community feature.
Definition
Follow, Chatter Answers was the mechanism for subscribing to updates on a question or thread inside the legacy Chatter Answers self-service community feature. Chatter Answers was retired by Salesforce; its modern successor is Questions in Chatter and Q&A posts in Experience Cloud sites, where the same "Follow" concept lets users opt in to notifications when a question gets answers, comments, or best-answer selections.
In plain English
“Follow, Chatter Answers was a way to get notified when someone replied to a question in Salesforce's old Chatter Answers self-service community. Chatter Answers was retired, but the idea lives on: in modern Experience Cloud communities and in Chatter Questions you can still Follow a question to get pinged when someone answers or picks a best answer.”
Worked example
At Bayside Electronics, a service agent posts a question in the support community: "What's the warranty handling for refurbished units?" The product manager sees the question in her Chatter feed and clicks Follow. When another agent answers and a third marks the answer as Best, the product manager gets Chatter notifications on both events - the same Follow-on-question pattern that existed in Chatter Answers, delivered through Experience Cloud today.
Why Follow, Chatter Answers matters
Chatter Answers was a Salesforce self-service community feature that combined Chatter posts with Q&A workflows - ask a question, get answers, mark one as the best answer, and close the thread. 'Follow' on a Chatter Answers question let users get notifications about subsequent activity on that thread. Salesforce retired Chatter Answers years ago in favor of modern Experience Cloud (Communities) and the Chatter Questions post type.
The Follow concept moved forward intact. In Experience Cloud with the Customer Service template or Help Center, users Follow questions to get notifications when answers arrive; agents and SMEs use Follow on queues of outstanding questions as a lightweight inbox. In internal Chatter, the Questions post type supports the same Follow behavior. Any reference to 'Chatter Answers' in existing documentation should be read as a legacy pointer - the thing people still need (ping me when this question gets an answer) is now delivered through Experience Cloud or Chatter Questions.
How organizations use Follow, Chatter Answers
Uses Follow on Chatter Questions so product managers see when new service-agent questions get answered, without scanning the community feed manually.
Trains SMEs to Follow all questions tagged with their product area in the Experience Cloud support site, creating an implicit notification queue.
Retired legacy Chatter Answers during its Experience Cloud migration; the 'Follow a question' pattern was preserved so users didn't need to relearn notification behavior.
Test your knowledge
Q1. How does Follow, Chatter Answers help support agents be more productive?
Q2. Which Salesforce Cloud includes Follow, Chatter Answers as a key feature?
Q3. What business function does Follow, Chatter Answers primarily support?
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