by Want to improve your marketing insight? Have you considered LinkedIn Polls?
In this article, you'll find nine ways to use LinkedIn Polls for your business.
How to Set Up a LinkedIn Poll
You can create LinkedIn polls just about anywhere on the LinkedIn platform, including your professional profile (individual account), company page, showcase page, group, and even inside an event. Both you and anyone viewing your LinkedIn poll post will be able to see how many people have responded to your poll while it's active and when it comes to an end.
Whether you're creating a LinkedIn poll from your mobile device or desktop computer, the steps are the same.
First, click the option to Start a Post. In the Create a Post window, click the + icon and select the Create a Poll option.
Next, type in your question and add up to four poll response options. Currently, LinkedIn only allows participants to select a single response to a poll rather than multiple responses, so your question should encourage readers to select one option that best suits them.
From the Poll Duration drop-down menu, select a time limit for poll responses—from 1 day up to 2 weeks. When you're finished creating the poll, click Done.
Now compose the rest of your poll post. Make sure you include 1–3 LinkedIn hashtags that are relevant to your poll topic to gather entries from outside of your immediate LinkedIn audience. When you're finished, click Post to publish it.
When your poll has concluded, take a look at who responded to it. LinkedIn will show you their name, headline, and poll response.
Pro Tip: Your LinkedIn poll post will remain wherever you published it long after the poll has ended, so if it's something you'd only like visible for a short period of time, remember to go back and delete it.
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Now that you know how to create a poll, here are nine ways you can use LinkedIn polls for your business.
#1: Uncover Your LinkedIn Audience's Top Goals
Does your LinkedIn audience come from a wide variety of industries? If you're trying to come up with new content or promotional ideas for your audience but aren't sure where to start, consider using a LinkedIn poll to ask your audience what their current goals are. A carefully worded LinkedIn poll with four distinct responses to choose from will help you narrow down what information and education your audience needs from you to achieve their goals.
With this information in hand, you'll be able to craft more engaging LinkedIn content that has a higher likelihood of converting fans into email subscribers or website visitors, and ultimately, paying customers.
#2: Determine Your LinkedIn Network's Preferred Content Type
Wondering whether you should create some helpful LinkedIn documents or a series of short, snappy videos for your LinkedIn community? Use a LinkedIn poll to learn your audience's content preferences. This will help ensure you're creating content that your audience wants to engage with.
If you want to take it a step further, you could even go back to your poll post once you've uploaded your first piece of new content to let respondents know that their feedback has turned into something tangible. This follow-up will help you build a stronger relationship and level of trust with your LinkedIn community, showing them that you really do listen to what they have to say.
#3: Gather Consumer Feedback for Products and Services
If you've recently launched a new product or service, why not ask your LinkedIn audience for some feedback? There are a few ways you do this with a poll, largely depending on the type of product or service you're looking for feedback on.
Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
- Have you tried our new product/service, [insert name here]?
- Which of our [insert product name] features do you use the most?
- Have you heard about our new product/service, [insert name here]?
- What do you think of our new [insert product name]? Rate it below…
#4: Gauge Interest in New Product or Service Concepts
Not sure which direction to take with your next launch? If you have a sizable LinkedIn audience with raving fans, consider asking them for some timely feedback on a handful of ideas through a LinkedIn poll.
Here, Ryan Jenkins is using a LinkedIn poll to find new ways to communicate the value of his services to clients.
This tactic will help you not only get instant feedback but also gather a list of people who may be interested in taking a more in-depth survey off-platform to help with further market research efforts.
Another way you could follow up after a LinkedIn poll of this nature would be to offer product samples or an exclusive offer to anyone who responds.
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GET THE DETAILSAfter your LinkedIn poll has ended, you'll be able to see exactly who participated and which option they selected so you can strategically share offers with relevant respondents.
#5: Qualify Prospects in Your LinkedIn Network
If you're not getting a lot of engagement on LinkedIn, consider using a LinkedIn poll to start a conversation on a topic related to your industry.
This simple two-answer poll is a great way to get a conversation started.
Choose a straightforward question and offer 2–3 answers for respondents to choose from. In your LinkedIn poll post, encourage your audience to leave comments to further explain their choice.
Here are a few conversation starters to guide you:
- When you're doing [insert industry-related activity], do you either…
- Does your organization make use of [insert industry-related tool or process]?
- If you could use only one of these three methods in your business, which would you double down on?
#6: Reveal Your LinkedIn Network's Top Pain Point
You likely help your customers in multiple ways, especially if you have a few different product or service offerings to choose from. If you're in a transitional time of year or want to find out how you can add more value to your LinkedIn audience, use a LinkedIn poll to find out what problem is at the top of their list to solve over the next 2–3 months.
With your poll responses in hand, you'll be able to more accurately choose a product or service to promote on LinkedIn (organically or through LinkedIn ads) that would be most likely to appeal to your audience.
#7: Identify Knowledge Gaps
If you're struggling to determine whether your educational content is too advanced or too basic for your audience, use a LinkedIn poll to test their knowledge on a particular topic. You could do this by asking a question that prompts respondents to pick the most appropriate description of an industry acronym or a process that you help your customers with.
Consider the different levels of knowledge that someone may have about your products or services and build your poll answer options around these different levels of understanding. The most common answers will give you insight that will help you determine whether you need to tweak your content marketing approach.
#8: Research Emerging Industry Trends
Have you noticed a shift in your industry? Is a new industry-wide approach picking up steam? If you offer services to a specific niche, it's worth running a LinkedIn poll with a question about an emerging industry trend.
This approach is a great way to create topical, engaging content for your LinkedIn company page that's sure to spark conversation in the comments section.
You could also use this approach inside an industry-specific LinkedIn group to re-engage members and encourage them to share their perspectives with the group.
Here are a few potential LinkedIn poll questions that will help bring this idea to life:
- In your role, are you making use of [insert new strategy/approach]?
- Have you seen an increase in requests for [insert new trend] in the last 6 months?
- In your organization, have you prioritized [insert new approach] in your planning?
This type of LinkedIn poll is particularly useful for B2B and enterprise-level businesses.
#9: Determine LinkedIn Audience Makeup by Industry or Company Role
Perhaps you're the administrator of a LinkedIn group and want to get to know your community a little better. Or maybe you've set up a LinkedIn event and have had a heap of new people RSVP and sign up for updates. To better serve your community, consider running a LinkedIn poll that helps you get to know the people in your group or event.
A great way to do this is to encourage your audience to choose a category that best describes their role or industry. This simple, noninvasive question will help you gauge the predominant industry in your LinkedIn community so you can craft relevant and helpful content.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Everything you need to know about creating a LinkedIn poll, as well as nine ideas to get you started. Now's the time to map out how you're going to make the most of LinkedIn polls across the various publishing methods LinkedIn has to offer.
What do you think? Are you inspired to run a LinkedIn poll on your page or profile? What questions might you ask your audience through a LinkedIn poll? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
More articles on LinkedIn marketing:
- Learn how to use the Featured section on your LinkedIn profile.
- Discover how to use LinkedIn to gather valuable insights about your competitors and use what you learn to grow your own business.
- Find four tips for cultivating a following on LinkedIn.
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