Social Media Polls – are you in or out?

It’s 2018 and now more than ever, everybody has got an opinion.  Whether it’s on subjects from the Kardashians to Brexit or simply if you prefer dogs to cats, we want our viewpoint heard.

For small businesses to global brands, social media is the platform for communities to have their voice heard. Whether it be a common customer service enquiry to just some general feedback – users want to give their opinion via social.

So why is the introduction of polls so important to your business?

In 2015 Twitter introduced polls, even though basic, they allowed users an opportunity to ask questions, with multiple choice answers to choose from. The emphasis was on presenting the public with topics that they care about to offer their opinion, as well as increasing engagement and aiding real customer insight. This then paved the way for allowing users to feel valued by businesses and brands and even opened doors to offering something in return for their opinion.

Following Twitter, Facebook experimented with polling, but it never found a consistent way to run polls that worked for both business pages and regular accounts.

Late last year though after announcing the feature would be added to Instagram, the social network added a new feature that allowed Facebook users to create two-question polls that friends and followers could vote on in News feeds. In addition, it also allows the poll creator to upload photos or GIFs to go along with each option. The difference to Twitter – answers aren’t anonymous. Your friends and followers will know exactly what you voted for.

Alongside Facebooks rollout was Instagram’s introduction of the new polls feature as part of its Stories platform, which allows both brands and individual users to add customisable polls to their Stories and collect feedback from their audiences.

While currently only an organic feature, polls present a number of opportunities for brands to monitor results, receive feedback and tweak their current content to serve your overall business objectives based on consumer provided responses.

So how can you maximise polls for your business?

• Ask users about their preference on the type of content you’re posting – resulting in quick, actionable feedback. This type of poll gives businesses a clear picture of what their fans are enjoying, allowing them to produce more of the good and less of the bad.
• Gauge interest in future content – a great opportunity to ask fans what they want from you next – more video? Behind the scenes? After the votes come in ensure you deliver on your promise.
• Feedback polls can also be used for more than just informing content creation – if you’re confident in your product, why not ask the fans what they like about it? What’s their favourite style, colour, flavour?

Gone are the days of being limited to just updating your business social media status with a broadcast message, this is a receptive method of understanding what your audience thinks, feels and wants.  If you’re looking to understand your audience better whilst increasing engagement, polls are a fantastic way to do so. Social media is ultimately about conversation so let your audience help shape your social media and content strategy by listening to exactly what they want. They couldn’t make it easier for you.

Want to hear more? Yes / No – Get in touch today to see how we could help you shape your social media efforts for maximum impact.

 Want to try your own Instagram poll? Follow these simple steps:

1. Upload an Instagram story photo or video, as normal
2. Swipe up to access the stickers feature and select ‘poll’
   *You can only use one poll per story
3. Create your poll question and answers (27-character limit!) – It doesn’t have to be Yes/No answers it can be any choice options eg pink / blue
4. Post your story and wait for the results!