Social networking platforms have to keep evolving with the times to stay ahead of their competitors. There is always something new in the market that others have to compete with so they don’t lose their users. Instagram has had to compete with Snapchat and Twitter over the years, with Snapchat recently adding the Snap Maps feature and Twitter increasing its character limit for the tweets. Instagram, in its bid to stay ahead of them, has introduced its own innovative feature; polls. Want to know what Instagram polls are? Or how to create a poll on Instagram? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
The idea behind Instagram polls is to give your Instagram Stories an interactive element. It builds on something we all do anyway; asking our friends and families for their opinions on things that matter to us. These things may be big or small, but the whole reason for creating a poll is because they matter to you. So, if you want an opinion on what dress to wear for a night out on the town, create a poll on Instagram and ask your followers. Can’t decide where to go for your Sunday brunch? Again, create a poll on Instagram and make the decision easier. Getting people’s opinions on things has never been easier.
What are Instagram Polls?
Before we talk about how you can create a poll on Instagram, let’s discuss what these polls are and how they work. As mentioned above, these are made to add an element of interactivity to your account. Where do you add these polls? To your Instagram Stories. You can easily add a poll sticker to any Instagram Story you create and ask the questions you need to from your followers. Your friends vote when they view your Story and you can see the results in real-time. This is a great way to not only get advice and opinion on things, but also get some feedback and validation.
The best part about poll on Instagram is that you never have to leave the screen to message the person directly or vote elsewhere. While your respondents vote directly in your Story, you view the results in the same way; on the actual sticker in your Story. This means that people are more likely to respond to your poll, because otherwise no one likes to go through the extra trouble. Why? Because the whole thing requires as little effort as possible, is quick and you can do it whenever you want from anywhere you are. All these factors work together to increase the engagement of your followers with your poll.
You can be sure that companies and brands will get on this bandwagon pretty quickly because they all jump at the idea of increasing engagement with their customers. And it will give customers a chance to make important decisions when it comes to the products they like and use.
How to Create a Poll on Instagram
Now, let’s get down to the real business; how you can create a poll on Instagram to start getting feedback from your friends and followers. Well, the process is really easy and requires as little effort as possible. So, how do you go about it? Read the steps below to find out.
- The first thing you have to do is open your Instagram app and log in if you haven’t logged in already.
- Then, tap on the camera icon to add something to your Story.
- In the camera screen, take a picture of anything you want or select an existing image from your camera roll. You should choose a picture that gives some context to your poll and not select any random image that confuses your respondents.
- Next, edit the picture however you want. You can add stickers and text to make the picture as interesting as you want. However, don’t clutter it too much and leave some room for the actual poll.
- Then, tap on the Stickers icon and select “Poll” to add this sticker to your picture.
- This will open a page where you can write the question you want to ask your followers in the “Ask a question…” section.
- After that, tap on the “Yes” and “No” boxes if you want to edit the options of the poll. The options depend on your question and can be anything you want.
- Finally, to complete your editing, simply tap on the checkmark icon. You can then move your poll around on the picture and place it exactly where you want to.
- Once you have edited the poll and the picture according to how you want, you can post it to your Story like you normally would.
When your poll goes live, all your followers who see the post will get an alert that there is a poll available on your Story. They can then open the poll and select the response they prefer from the options you have provided them. You will get push notifications from Instagram whenever someone responds to your poll. However, if you have a lot of followers and expect them all to respond, you might want to consider turning the push notifications off because they will get annoying after a while. How will you view your results then? By simply going to your Story. To view the results of your poll, you have to go back to the Instagram app, open your Story and swipe up on the post. This will allow you to see the analytics of the poll, which will include a list of people who interacted with the poll by submitting their response. You can also see how many people voted for which option.
The Instagram poll will be available for all your followers for as long as your Story is live, which means it will be available for view for twenty four hours. You have to be careful about viewing the results within this time, because as soon as the post disappears, so will the results. There are no backups to the result and no long-term storage, so be sure to check the results periodically and especially before the story expires.
Why Use Instagram Polls?
You may be wondering why you need to use Instagram polls or what good will they do to your life in general. Well, it’s a great way to interact with your followers and an even better way to get feedback on anything that may be on your mind. While many of the polls are likely to be about trivial, frivolous things that won’t make much of an impact on your life, they can be a fun way to add some interactivity to your Stories. Then again, there are polls that can be more substantial, more creative and imaginative, and that leave a lasting impact. It’s still too early for this feature to determine where the scales will be tipped in this regard, but it’s interesting to imagine anyway.
One thing you can expect is for companies and businesses to adopt this feature because we all know how much they depend on the feedback of their customers. They can make polls to get feedback on their latest products, changes to older products and services, their branding and marketing, and a whole lot of other things. This method is likely to be a revolutionary one when it comes to customer feedback, and since Instagram has a huge daily user base a lot of people will be expected to respond to such polls.
Like we said, this is a new feature so there haven’t been a lot of great polls yet, but we expect there to be a lot of them when the feature catches up with the users. However, we may have missed the polls you might have come across so if there are any interesting ones that you’ve seen, do share them with us all!
Ideas for Instagram Polls
Now that you know how to create a poll in Instagram, what’s next? Actually creating one. Don’t know how to get started? We have some ideas for you.
- Yes or No Questions – Easy and quick to answer, people are more likely to respond to these questions. Plus, they’re easier for you to create and can be pretty effective. For example, you can ask questions like “Do you like…?” and “Have you seen…?” to ask how many of your followers like a certain thing, or have seen a TV show or movie.
- This or That Questions – You can use these questions when you’re trying to decide between two options; for instance, if you’re trying to decide what to do or which movie to watch, etc.
- Grow Mailing List – You can use your Instagram followers to grow your mailing list, particularly if your followers are engaging ones. You can ask people questions like “Can I email you with a free…?” People that reply with a yes to such questions, you can message them directly to ask for their email address.
These are just some of the ideas you can use. There are a lot more creative ways you can use Instagram polls to interact with your followers and keep your account fun.
Michelle 
Clarice