As you probably know, there’s a ton of content being pushed our way every day. Probably more now than ever before, which is why you can assume your clients are experiencing the same phenomenon. The big question on your mind is how to break through the noise and differentiate yourself from your competitors.
One specific way to increase engagement on social media is through surveys. Surveys are not a new concept, but with the evolution of social media, it’s easier to incorporate surveys or polls in your content strategy.
Whether you use that information to learn more about the behaviors of your audience, or just to start a dialogue, you’ll start to see a benefit. I’ll share a few of the platforms that have made surveys easier to use, and more fun for your audience!
News Feed
If you have a page for your company or business, you can create a poll for the people who like your page. With these types of polls, you can ask your audience to choose between two options. You have the ability to get creative and make it more eye-catching by adding pictures or GIFs to each of the options. (Who doesn’t like a good GIF, right?) You can also customize the timing of your poll. It can be open for responses for one day, one week, never, or you can customize when the poll will end. It’s worth noting that you can’t make a poll on your personal profile on Facebook. However, tf posting a poll on your personal profile makes more sense for you, you will want to use Facebook Stories.
Stories
Facebook stories can be posted from your personal profile or your company/business page. Polls in Facebook stories are pretty similar to polls on your page. It’s a little less flexible only because they’re only available for 24 hours, meaning you run the risk of people not seeing if they just aren’t active on the day you decide to post it. While limiting in timeframe, you have a lot more freedom to be creative. You can either take a picture or video in the moment or choose media that already exists in your camera roll. If the media already poses a question, you can leave the “ask a question…” part blank. To change the default options, you can click on them and write what you want your audience to choose between.
Stories
Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, the setup is almost exactly the same as polls in Facebook Stories; you have two options for your audience to choose from and the length of the poll is limited to 24 hours. Stories are often used more on Instagram because the feature on Facebook came after it was already available on Instagram. However, to make sure you’re reaching as many people as possible, you have the ability to share your Instagram Story to your Facebook Story. You can set up your account to do that every time you post an Instagram story, or you can just decide to share it once.
News Feed
Twitter polls are very straightforward. When you’re crafting a tweet, you have the option to turn it into a poll, and the poll will go out the same way a tweet would. You can have two to four poll options (twice the amount as any other social media polling platform) and you can customize the length of your poll for up to seven days.
Polls can help you build relationships with your audience. Even just by creating a poll and posting it as your Instagram story, shows your audience that their feedback and opinions matter to you and your business. Customers who feel heard are loyal ones who are more likely to refer you to a friend.
If done strategically, surveys can reveal valuable information about the wants and needs of your audience. When you have a better understanding of what your audience cares about, it can help you to identify problems you can solve for them and adjust or make marketing decisions based on those problems. For example, you can ask what topics they want to know more about and use the findings to start producing more curated content. If you use your findings from your surveys to tailor your marketing efforts to what your survey responses suggest, it can and will help you drive more business.