The antagonism among users on the live feed before Mr Bush took to the stage suggested that he might be in for a rough ride and that this could be a tough audience.
In the end the questions were ones he has been asked a thousand times, especially while punting his memoir Decision Points.
Over the last couple of weeks no prime-time stage - be it Oprah's or Jay Leno's - has been complete without an appearance from Mr Bush. His visit to Facebook's Palo Alto office was a brilliant coup by his wranglers, given the potential reach of more than 500 million users.
Mr Bush has an inside link with Facebook: the company's general counsel Ted Ullyot has strong ties to the Republican Party and worked as a White House lawyer.
However the appearance came about, it generated a lot of buzz; the site lit up with comments, praise and criticism.
From the get-go, Mr Bush was candid about the reasons for his social media volte-face:
"You got a lot of people paying attention to us and I'm trying to sell books.
"I've got over 600,000 friends on my Facebook page and I have watched your company grow. I love a country that enables somebody like you to have a dream and actually make it work and employ a lot of people and give them a chance to create wealth and create jobs.
"Plus the truth of the matter is I am shamelessly marketing. I hope people read my book. I have written this book because I recognise there is no such thing as short-term history and I want to give future historians a perspective - mine."
Even though Mr Bush referred to the social-networking service as "the Facebook" (as it was originally known), he insisted that he is not the Luddite many cast him as.
He told the audience he was the first "e-mail president" and that while he didn't want his name on any e-mails because they are all archived and could be misconstrued in years to come, his administration generated 170 million of them.
Mr Bush said that today he is a Blackberry person and an iPad person and gave his own view on subjects from the financial meltdown to management styles. Nothing seemed to be off the table. Many of the answers, however, didn't really delve deep despite the near-hour-long session.
Take Iraq, a subject that has divided this country and others: Mr Bush's answer was a tad long-winded, beginning with a description of the process which included bringing in new team members to move forward on the surge.
"I had to get everyone inside the administration on board because this is one of these decisions nobody was for at the time and any criticisms within the administration would have made it really hard to get funded in Congress.Mr Zuckerberg shifted the issue of foreign relations to China, seen by companies like Facebook as a major growth area given the size of the population and the numbers set to come online. Again, Mr Bush offered an anecdote:
"I hope people find it interesting [in terms of the] process. They may not agree with the decision but nevertheless it will give you a sense of what it was like to make a decision like this particularly since the country was against it.
"But what you didn't know at the time is I was deeply affected by many members of the military, particularly [by] the families who had lost a loved one. When they came to see me, and many did, they really wanted to know whether or not I was going to lead their child on the battlefield because of politics or whether or not I cared more about my standing politically or did I care really about completing the mission so that some point in time history would validate their loved one's sacrifice.
"Those words echoed in my mind all the time, just all the time."
"I actually believe trade with China will change the Chinese system. I do believe in this case the markets will drive change. I think there is enormous freedom in the marketplace.What kept Mr Bush up at night when he was in power?
"When I first went to China to visit my dad, who was envoy there in 1975, everybody dressed the same. And I went back in 2001 the marketplace was flourishing. People had choice. That is freedom and it is the ultimate expression of freedom where a collection of consumers can demand product that then gets produced.
"A more effective way is for the marketplace to change, then the political system follows. One of the things I like to ask these leaders is 'What keeps you up at night?' And they said the creation of 25 million new jobs a year.
"To me it explains a lot about China. They are inward-looking. They are gluttonous for natural resources. It explains a lot of their Iranian policy and their Sudanese policy."
"It seems kind of far-fetched probably, here in Palo Alto, this idyllic setting, that there would be another attack [like 9/11]. But I thought about it every night," said Mr Bush.
One question that was, oddly, presented as a foreign policy issue regarded U2's singer Bono, who appears in the book. Mr Bush joked about his chief of staff's concern about the extent of the president's musical knowledge:
"Josh Bolton says, before I meet Bono, he says 'You do know who Bono is?' I say 'Yeah, he is like an Irish rock star...'Alongside the joke, Mr Bush said that at first he thought Bono was a "self-promoting rock star" but, after working with him, regarded him as a "friend" and "a really good guy".
"And Josh says 'You got it right.' And I said '...married to Cher.'"
Mr Bush was also candid about his feelings and imparted some sage words for fathers based on his own upbringing:
"If you are a father out there, my advice is to love your child unconditionally. I was given a great gift by George HW Bush and that is unconditional love. Life is full of risks and if you have the love of someone you admire, it mitigates risk.Mr Bush denied that the book was his way of burnishing his image in the light of events like Iraq and the financial meltdown. Though he said he hoped to be remembered for the right reasons, it doesn't keep him up at night:
"I tell people half-way jokingly that running for president is risky. You can run and lose and they can say 'what a pathetic candidate', or you can run and win and they can say 'what a pathetic president'.
"Either way it doesn't matter if you have the unconditional love of somebody you admire. And if you are fortunate enough to be a father my advice is: love your child with all your heart and soul."
"A guy who protected the country and didn't sell his soul for the sake of politics. I am not worried about it. I am a comfortable guy. I have a great wife. My daughters are awesome. I am blessed.Even though the fist-pump Mr Bush gave Mr Zuckerberg came across as trying too hard, it appears that his appearance was a success and one that other politicians will be only too eager to copy.
"You've got to live life to the fullest. I didn't want it to be said I didn't seize that moment. I thought long and hard about running for president. I could have passed on it and ended up being governor, finished out my term and gone back to the private sector but I had an opportunity.
"Ultimately it boiled down to: I wanted to live life to the fullest. I wasn't going to let the moment pass and you have seized the moment here at Facebook and I congratulate you for living life to the fullest and going for it.
"Your life is not going to work out the way you expect. The unexpected will happen. You will get dealt a hand you didn't want to play. That is going to happen to all of us. The question is: how are you going to play it?"
Mr Bush certainly hopes it won over a few more "friends" who will part with their cash and buy the book:
"This book is my way of letting you in on my life as president and that is it. I am not trying to shape any post president. If you see me in an airport I hope you wave with all five fingers, but if you don't, you won't be the first."