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The Ultimate Guide To Twitter Polls

Dec 23, 2021 12 min read

Twitter introduced Twitter polls as a new and fresh way to generate engagement and gain feedback from the Twitter audience.

The simplicity of polls on Twitter gives them an advantage over other methods such as attempting to gain feedback from online or offline surveys, reviews, or testimonials where the process is lengthy, and response rates are also less.

Not only are your results in real-time, but you can also retweet the polls to your followers and help them reach an even broader audience.

Twitter polls are an untapped gold mine for your marketing strategy. Here's all you need to know about polls on Twitter and how you can make the best use of them to engage your audience and generate useful information.

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What Are Twitter Polls?

According to Twitter's official announcement:

Twitter polls are a new way to engage with the massive Twitter audience and understand exactly what people think. For those participating in the poll, it's a very easy way to make their voice heard.

When you are in need of a second opinion, whether it is deciding which new product to try out or what color to add to your next project, you can easily gather votes from your Twitter audience within the clicks of a button.

The Twitter poll appears to provide a better and simpler experience for both creators and participants.

A Twitter poll allows you to ask a question to your Twitter followers with a minimum of two choices and up to four response choices.

Polls on Twitter take away some of the negative perceptions people have of traditional online surveys, such as they need to go to another website to vote.

Additionally, because the participant's vote isn't shared, they usually vote freely without the fear of getting spammed, resulting in more reliable feedback.

The Anonymity Of Twitter Polls

When you vote in a Twitter poll, your participation is not shown to others. That is, neither the poll creator nor other participants can see who has cast their votes or the choices they had chosen.

The anonymity of polls on Twitter is another factor that makes users more likely to participate in a poll.

Participants usually like the fact that answers to the poll are anonymous because that reassures them that brands cannot target them with spam messages based on their choices. This is a big plus for Twitter polls.

But that is just a short-sighted view on polls on Twitter, and this shouldn't turn off brands from creating polls and engaging with their customers since Twitter polls also allow brands to gather a pool of data quickly.

If the polls are conducted in the right manner, brands can gain a lot of data on what their fans expect from them.

How To Make A Poll On Twitter?

Twitter polls can be created on desktop as well as on Twitter iOS and Android apps. Here are the steps you should follow to create polls on Twitter on desktop:

Step 1: Locate to Twitter and log in to your account (if you aren't already logged in).

Step 2: Click the Tweet compose box at the top of your Home timeline. Alternatively, you can also click the Tweet button in the left navigation bar.

Step 3: Click the Add poll icon to add a poll to your Tweet.

How To Make A Poll On Twitter Step 3

Step 4: Type your poll question into the Ask a question space (in the main compose box). The character limit of a Twitter poll question is the same as that of a normal Tweet, i.e., 280 characters.

How To Make A Poll On Twitter Step 4

Step 5: Insert your first poll option in the Choice 1 box and your second poll option in the Choice 2 box. You can add up to 25 characters for each option. To add more choices to your poll, click +. Your poll can have up to four options.

Step 6: Default duration of your poll is set to 1 day. You can change the duration of your poll by adjusting the days, hours, and minutes. The minimum duration you can set for a poll is 5 minutes, and the maximum is 7 days.

Step 7: You can even choose who can reply to the poll Tweet you just created. By default, this setting is set to "Everyone can reply." Simply click on the same option and select the most appropriate choice to change this setting.

How To Make A Poll On Twitter Step 7

Step 8: Click Tweet to post the poll.

And you just created your first poll!

Note:

  1. Photos cannot be included in a Twitter Poll.

  2. There must be text included in the Tweet to post a poll.

  3. Your followers can see on your Tweet the time left to vote, the total number of people who have cast their vote on that poll, and the poll result in percentage up till then.

  4. Once a poll gets completed, its results can be viewed publicly.

How To Cast Vote In Twitter Polls?

When you see a Tweet with a poll, just click or tap your preferred choice. The results instantly get displayed after you vote for the poll. Your vote gets indicated with a checkmark next to the choice.

You can only cast one vote in a poll at one time. The amount of time remaining in the poll and the current total vote count are also displayed under the poll choices.

How To View Final Results of Twitter Polls?

A Twitter poll ends between 5 minutes and 7 days after it has been posted. The exact duration depends on the duration set by the person/account who Tweeted it.

Once the poll has ended, the winning choice is shown in bold. If you have cast a vote in a poll, you may receive a push notification alerting you about the final results.

Twitter Poll Results

How To Create & Schedule A Twitter Poll Using Statusbrew?

Using Statusbrew, you can now directly create and schedule Twitter polls from Compose. Here's how you can create and schedule a Twitter poll from Statusbrew:

Step 1: From your dashboard, go to Compose.

Step 2: From the profile picker, select your desired Twitter profile to which you wish to create a poll.

Step 3: Click the Add a poll option.

Step 4: Type your question in the Compose box. Add your choices to the choice box. Click + Add another choice to add additional options to your poll.

Step 5: Set the poll length by adjusting days, hours, and minutes from the drop-down menu.

Step 6: You can then directly publish your poll, send it for approval, save it as a draft, or schedule it.

Create & Schedule A Twitter Poll Using Statusbrew

Why Should You Make A Twitter Poll Using Statusbrew?

Statusbrew helps you do more than simply Tweeting individual Twitter polls. With a social media management tool like Statusbrew, you can also schedule Tweet polls in advance, schedule polls by predefined category, and discover the best time to post.

Schedule polls directly: You can schedule Tweets from the ads campaign dashboard. But to login into the ads campaign dashboard, you will have to enter your credit card details. It's not possible to schedule Twitter polls directly from your Home timeline on Twitter. But within Statusbrew, you can directly schedule polls from the Compose window.

Save polls as draft: It's also not possible to draft Twitter polls directly from your Home timeline on Twitter. Statusbrew allows you to directly draft polls from the Compose window so that you can edit it later and publish it without having to create the poll from scratch.

Edit scheduled polls: Scheduling Twitter polls on Statusbrew does not mean setting it and forgetting it. You can make literally any change to your poll until it is published. You can even delete a scheduled poll and create it from scratch if you want. You can change the publishing date, assigned tags, approvers, watchers, etc.

Discover the best time to Tweet a poll to gain maximum votes: Know when your audience is the most active on the platform and schedule your Twitter polls at your best posting times to increase the chances of gaining maximum votes by your target audience.

Best Time To Post Twitter Polls

Add tags: Tags in Statusbrew categorize the outbound and inbound content according to their purpose or theme from Statusbrew Compose and Engage Inbox. And tag insights help you make better-informed decisions by tracking the success of your published content.

Add watchers: Keep your team members in the loop of publishing activity by adding them as watchers in the form of user or user groups.

Add post title exclusive to Statusbrew: Statusbrew allows you to allocate a post title exclusively for a Tweet that will only be visible and can be used within Statusbrew's environment.

Best Time To Post Twitter Polls

Visualize a calendar view of all your scheduled polls: After scheduling your polls using Statusbrew, you can view them in the Publish calendar. You can view in a list format or use the week view to visualize how you have scheduled throughout a particular week, or you can select the month view to visualize your publishing schedule for the entire month.

Assign approvers: Want to get a second, third, or even more eyes on your Twitter poll before it gets published? No problem, just assign appropriate approver(s) after composing, and your poll will not get published unless approved.

Improve your poll performance with in-depth reporting: Pick the most appropriate metric and track the progress of your Twitter polls. Prove your poll impact with visual reports. From automated custom reports to detailed audience insights, you can see exactly what works for your polls on Twitter and why.

Quickly monitor and respond to engagements on Twitter polls: Get all your Twitter comments from different profiles delivered in a single inbox and respond to comments quickly. You can even assign conversations to internal team members and add internal notes.

How To Engage Your Audience With Twitter Polls?

Here are some tips on how you can harness the power of polls on Twitter to engage your audience and generate useful information.

Ask For Insights

One of the easiest and fastest ways to engage with your Twitter audience is by asking for insights. It's easy market research for you.

Ask such questions that are aimed at gaining useful and valuable insights into the habits of your Twitter followers. You can ask about their preferences, pain points, or what they look for in a product or service. You can start by asking the most basic questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no, and then you can proceed with more detailed poll questions.

Twitter polls example

Eventbrite wanted to collect insights on the Halloween season habits of their Twitter audience. So they conducted this poll during October, which is a strategy to help their followers think about their Halloween planning. They can even generate ideas for their holiday marketing campaigns for Halloween.

Keep Up With Current Trends

Use the trends on Twitter to your advantage when it comes to polling your followers. Whether it's a happening event, a major news story, a trending piece of pop culture, or viral hashtags, you can use Twitter polls to entertain or start a conversation with your audience.

For sure, people are already Tweeting about trends, so you just need to insert your brand's voice through polls. Also ensure that the topic is relevant to your brand voice and industry.

Ask For Predictions

Timeliness is king on Twitter. As you use trending events to generate engagement, a specific way to do this is to ask for predictions based on those events.

If there are any important events relevant to your brand or upcoming events, this is an ideal way to engage with your followers. You can use Twitter polls to ask for a prediction, both before and after the event.

Focus On Your Followers

Focusing on your target audience is important on social media. Your target audience fits your general buyer persona, which will give you an idea as to what type of content your followers like the most. With that information in mind, you can come up with Twitter polls that will be engaging for them.

Twitter polls example

The target audience of Airbnb is mostly travelers. Before the President's Day weekend, Airbnb asked their followers, through a Twitter poll, as to which perk they wanted to have most on their upcoming weekend trip.

This also lets them see what features people are most interested in during their trips and maybe even get some followers to think about making weekend vacation plans.

Ask For Opinions

Ask questions about your brand and try to be entertaining, too, depending on the culture you want to have. Give your audience brand related queries, which creates the perfect opportunity to engage with them and learn about their preferences.

Instead of using Tweets to generate leads or page visits, use Twitter polls to create brand awareness and perception among your audience. The more fun and engaging your poll is, the more reach it will gain and the higher your chances of expanding your Twitter following.

Twitter polls example

During the famous Super Bowl event, Krispy Kreme launched their Doughnut Bowl campaign by presenting a face-off of their different donut flavors. Not only was this engaging and fun to watch, but it also revealed which of their doughnuts flavors their customers liked the most and which they liked the least. This campaign also created brand awareness as it was very timely and launched during a famous event like the Super Bowl.

Promote Your Stuff

Promotional Tweets often bore out customers. However, a Twitter Poll can make a traditional advert feel a bit more like a game, letting users interact and choose their choices instead of just seeing it go by.

Whether you are promoting a product or a blog post, make sure your questions are engaging and fun so that your followers would love to participate in the poll.

Twitter polls example

Nissan showed up with a subtle approach to promoting their 2017 Armada by asking Twitter users how they would use the vehicle. Rather than appearing like a sales ad, it seemed like an interesting question that's fun to think about to their audience.

This is how you can promote yourself while also remaining entertaining.

Let Them Talk About Products

You can create a buzz around an upcoming offer or product by giving your followers an interesting choice to think about. You can combine this strategy with Twitter polls in a way that lets you seek feedback from your followers on specific products. This gives your audience the opportunity to voice their preferences, and that in turn gives you data.

Twitter polls example

Taco Bell conducted a Twitter poll just to find out which flavor of Doritos Locos Tacos their followers likes the most. Almost 16k+ people voted for their favorite flavor, giving Taco Bell some instant and valuable customer insight.

Use Polls To Inform Your Followers

You can use polls to inform your audience on important topics/announcements in your field.

Doing this is simple: Just pick a thought-provoking question that's related to your industry, and you want to shine a light on it and post simple choices.

When executed correctly, you can make your audience consider new viewpoints and spread awareness for a topic that's close to your brand's heart.

Twitter polls example

The Twitter poll by TurboTax makes rideshare drivers think about their taxes by reminding them to report self-employment tax after giving their 30th ride.

Use Humor To Your Advantage

Humor is one of the favorite ways of brands to increase engagement on their social content. Using humor in Twitter polls gives it a lighthearted feel and will make your audience smile.

It will also leave a good impression on your audience—something they will remember when deciding to purchase your products and services in the future.

Go For The Poll!

Have you used Twitter polls in your social media marketing strategies yet? If not, you may be missing out on an excellent opportunity to engage with your followers.

Engaging with your audience using polls on Twitter is excellent for establishing a better connection with your brand. Start small, and you may just get responses that will give a head-start to conversations with your audience.

Over time, Twitter polls can help you build a more engaged community as they definitely have the potential to be a powerful addition to your Twitter marketing strategies.

Grab the free trial today and start optimizing your Twitter marketing strategy with Statusbrew!

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Rushali Das

Rushali is a B2B SaaS content writer who specializes in writing research-driven blog posts around marketing for B2B SaaS brands.

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