If you’ve found your way to this handy guide to social media polls, you’ll already know about how harnessing the power of social media can help boost your business. From building your brand awareness to connecting with customers, using the right approach can make all the difference to the success of your company.
Although creating great content is a large part of a successful social media campaign, there are a few tricks and tools you can use to really boost your presence. Social media polls, available on a variety of platforms, are great for building an audience, engaging with customers and showcasing your brand.
In this blog post, we’re going to take a closer look at what social media polls are, and find out how they can help your business.
What are Social Media Polls?
Basically put, social media polls are a quick and efficient way to find out the thoughts and opinions of your audience. They can either be useful, helping you make business and product decisions, or they can simply be a fun way to engage and interact with your followers. By using polls, you can find out what your customer wants, provide them with that product or service and then watch your sales soar.
Which Platforms Offer Social Media Polls?
On a Facebook Business Page, you can currently create polls with a limited number of options, specifically two to four. There is no limit on the number of polls you can create, but each individual poll can only have two to four answer choices, then add either an image or GIF to go with them. Facebook also enables users to create polls within groups and on pages, adding to more community engagement.
- Click in the ‘create a post’ box.
- Click ‘publishing tools’.
- Click ‘create post’.
- Click the three dots on the right hand side of the box that pops up.
- Select ‘poll’.
- Create your poll; enter in your options with accompanying images or GIFs, select how long you want it to run for and when you want your poll to be posted, and you’re done!
X (formally known as Twitter)
X allows users to create polls directly from their timeline, visible to their followers and the broader community. The character limit for posts is 280 characters for standard users. However, X Premium users can post up to 25,000 characters, but you can still use it to create a great poll. X polls are purely text-based; they allow you to enter up to four options for your audience to choose from, and you can use up to 25 characters for each option. Photos cannot be included in an X Poll.
- Click into the Post compose box at the top of your Home timeline, or click the Post button in the left navigation bar, then click the graph icon.
- Write the question you want to answer in the usual place, not forgetting your all-important hashtags.
- Fill out the choice sections – you only have 25 characters, so keep it brief!
- Select how long you want the poll to run for.
- Click ‘post’ and watch the replies pour in!
Instagram polls are a little different, in that they only appear in the Stories section, allowing users to ask closed-ended questions and see real-time results, which is not on the main feed. They have a lifespan of 24 hours, so you need to make sure you monitor them carefully to get results.
- Create a new story: Swipe right on the screen or tap your profile picture to start a new story.
- Take or upload content: Capture a photo or video, or upload one from your gallery.
- Add the “Poll” sticker: Tap the sticker icon (usually a smiley face) and select the “Poll” sticker.
- Write your question and answer options: Type your poll question and customise the answer choices.
- Place the sticker: Drag and drop the poll sticker to your desired location on the story.
- Share your story: Tap “Your Story” or “Share to” to post the poll.
LinkedIn polls offer several benefits, including engaging your audience, gathering valuable insights, and increasing visibility for your content. They allow you to quickly and easily collect feedback, test ideas, and understand your audience’s opinions on various topics.
- Log in to your LinkedIn account and navigate to the homepage. Click on “Start a post” at the top of your feed.
- Select “Create a Poll”:
In the post pop-up window, click the “More” icon (three dots). Then, choose the “Create a poll” option. - Add Poll Details: Question: Type your poll question in the designated field (up to 140 characters). Answer Options: Fill in at least two answer options (up to 30 characters each). You can add up to four options using the “+ Add option” button. Poll Duration: Select the desired poll duration from the dropdown menu (1 day, 3 days, 1 week, or 2 weeks).
- Add a Post Description (Optional):
If you want to provide more context or explanation, you can add a description to the post before you create the poll. - Publish Poll: Once you’ve entered all the details, click “Done” and then “Post” to publish your poll.
TikTok
Users can incorporate polls into their videos, potentially through third-party apps or by creating polls within TikTok’s creative tools.
- In order to create a TikTok Poll, you will need to record a video first or upload a video from your gallery .
- Once your video has been recorded/ uploaded, tap on the ‘Stickers’ icon, ad then tap on the ‘Poll’ icon.
- Type a question into your poll, and add text into your options.
- Once posted, your audience will be able to vote on your poll whilst watching your video, and also be able to see the poll results after voting.
How Can I use Polls for my Business?
Now you know how to use social media polls, you need to decide which ones you’re going to use. The answer to this largely depends on what the aim of your question is. Are you trying to engage with your audience, and entertain them? Or are you wanting to find out your followers opinions on a new product? These are our top five ways to use polls for your business:
To Gauge Interest in a Product or Service
One of the best ways to translate a social media audience into active buyers is to provide them with a service they want – and how better to find this out than by asking them?
An X poll is great for a text-based query, such as ‘should we stay open an hour later on Thursday evenings?’, but Facebook, Instagram and TikTok polls would be far more beneficial for any posts than need visuals to go with them. You could:
- Ask which night of the week you should stay open later
- Ask which product they’d like added to the store, or if you’re in the hospitality industry, which food or drink item they’d most like to see on the menu
- Ask which area of the business they’d like to see expanded
- Ask which areas of your website could be improved
- Find out which design is the most popular when designing a new product
- Ask which new services they’d like you to offer
To Educate People on Subjects Related to Your Business
Polls aren’t just useful for increasing sales – they’re also a great tool to use to educate people and share knowledge on subjects relating to your business. By asking your audience a question and offering them multiple choice answers to pick from, they’ll learn a fun new fact and you’ll get that sweet engagement!
For example, if you’re a florist, you could ask your audience:
Q: Which of the following do orchids not need to grow?
a) Sunlight
b) Water
c) Soil
Once the poll is over, it will display how many people voted, and which option was the most popular. Don’t forget to post a follow up Post with the answer once the poll is over!
(The answer is soil, by the way!)
To Engage With Your Audience
A brand or business who appears to be friendly, approachable and interested in their customers are always going to do better on social media than those who aren’t. Making sure you regularly interact with your audience is a great start, but this is another area where polls come in handy.
There’s an almost unlimited amount of things you can ask your audience just to be chatty; you could find out how they take their coffee, how their day has been, what they’ve got planned for the weekend, what their favourite colour is, what pizza topping they always choose… the only limit is your imagination.
You could also make your questions less general and more related to your business. For example, if you design stationery, you could ask your audience which type of planners they prefer, whether they use digital or paper calendars, or how they like to organise their desks.
To Generate Content Ideas
A great company blog is an asset to any business, but it’s only helpful if people are reading it.
If you’re trying to boost your web traffic, using SEO techniques is a great idea – but something far simpler is to find out what your audience want to read about, and then write it for them!
Try using polls to find out what type of content your audience enjoy most; you could ask them whether they prefer written content, beautiful photography or video. You could also go more in depth, and offer them the choice between interviews with staff, posts that give an insight into how the business runs, more knowledge-based posts on subjects relating to your industry or Q&A posts with other local businesses.
And if that all sounds like too much work, we’re here to help. If you’re ready to take your social media to the next level, get in touch with us here.
