Engagement on Facebook has become increasingly tricky because of constant interface changes and the fact that Facebook tends to push its advertisements more than organic traffic. So, brands must get creative when engaging customers! Facebook polls are a great way to accomplish this.

Not only do polls encourage interactivity, but they’re easy to make, get people talking, and there’s the possibility of converting contributors into customers or leads afterward.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how to make Facebook polls the right way. We’ll also explore the benefits of Facebook polls, along with some excellent examples of polls run by real brands.

How can Facebook polls be insanely useful for your business?

If you have some doubts on how Facebook polls can help your business, consider the following benefits:

  • You have the opportunity to get feedback on your products and services. Many companies also build their future products with feedback from polls.
  • Polls allow you to potentially boost traffic to your website or social page since you can encourage users to share the polls with other people.
  • Each poll creates two pieces of content for you to share on Facebook. Brands are always hunting for new content. A poll gives you an initial post with the question, along with the announcement with results from the poll.
  • Communities are built when sharing polls, seeing as how people can start chatting about the results and their opinions.
  • Your company gains a deep understanding of who your customers are and how they act in real life and online. This is one of the most valuable aspects of polling. Suddenly, your customers aren’t numbers anymore.
  • It’s fun to run and participate in a poll! Social media is all about entertainment, so a poll is a more productive way of providing a clever content format.

The different variations of Facebook polls

A Facebook poll has an unlimited number of formats. Some of them are less structured, using simple Facebook statuses and questions to your users.

Others utilize different tools and pages provided by Facebook, allowing for response counting and more visual presentations. On the other hand, you might also consider some third-party apps to improve your polling tools even more.

Keep reading to learn about some of the best formats, and feel free to use some of these examples when creating your own Facebook polls.

The actual Facebook poll

Years back, Facebook didn’t have any official polling functionality where users could post and vote on regular posts.

That’s changed with Facebook’s purchase of a few polling companies. Now, Facebook lets users post polls in groups, pages, and events. You can also create polls in your stories.

We’ll outline how to make these polls further down in the article, but you can see how the following film podcast gets feedback from its listeners with the polling feature.

The podcast has a listener top 5 for movies in a certain category (like best sports biopics). They wanted to figure out the best way to tally the votes every week, so they asked the users!

What’s great about this method is that the votes are shown to the users and the admin doesn’t have to tally them up. It’s more official for when you want to get a real headcount.

film vault - Facebook polls

The comparison photo

The world of sports is filled with polls, from rankings to award shows.

ESPN also conducts polls on its Facebook page on a regular basis. Many of them are less formal, starting with questions and showing some images for people to choose from.

This ties in well with how people actually use social media. Users aren’t looking for anything formal, rather a place to entertain themselves and chat with other people.

Take the following example. It reveals a bit of news to NFL fans, mentioning that five teams are 10-2 going into the week. Then it polls the community by asking which of them is going to win the championship. To make it even better, ESPN includes a simple collage of players from the teams talked about.

espn - Facebook polls

The Film Vault podcast also utilizes the photo comparison poll on a regular basis to get suggestions on the “listener top 5.” This requires the producers of the show to count the number of votes for each film, but the advantage of this format is that the users can type in anything they want in the comments–instead of being confined to the options you might list in a real poll.

more film vault - Facebook polls

And sometimes a comparison photo isn’t necessary, or possible, for the topic. Feel free to only use one photo that relates to the topic.

listener top 5 - Facebook polls

The simple question

It’s always a good idea to vary your content formats. Sometimes the classic plain text post is a way to make your business look more like a real person.

A poll doesn’t have to include photos. It doesn’t have to be structured well with preset responses.

Hulu shows this technique by providing a question that relates to the Halloween season. Considering most TV shows make Halloween episodes, this is a wonderful way to get followers talking and thinking about watching TV.

The hashtag potentially expands the reach, and the emojis add a hint of festiveness to grab attention.

One of the huge benefits of polling with a classic Facebook post is that it’s encouraging people to take action in the comments. The polling functionality is nice, but you’re asking folks to take a vote and move on. This format is more conducive to conversation.

hulu - Facebook polls

Tie in some other content

Maybe you have a fresh new blog post you’d like to promote. Maybe you notice something in the press that relates to your business.

No matter what the content you would like to share, consider posting it with a poll or question.

Tablo sells an over-the-air DVR, and the following post references an article from Vulture Magazine. Sure, it would be better if it sent users to the Tablo site, but this is still a great way to generate content and get people talking.

tablo friday fun

How to make Facebook polls

A Facebook poll can be created on business, personal, and group pages.

Although it might be fun to poll your friends, we’re not that interested in personal page polls for building your business.

For the purpose of business, you’d start by going to your group or business page.

Polling is very simple and is done slightly different depending on whether you’re making one in a group or business page.

Making Facebook polls on your business page

Facebook seems to be trying to mimic polling from other networks like Instagram, because you can only have two options for people to choose on each poll.

We’re not sure about the exact reasoning for this, but looking on the bright side, two options works well for quick responses. In short, you should get more users taking the time to answer the polls.

Go to your business page and find the area you would typically write a post.

Either put your cursor in the field or click on the “…” button.

find the poll

Locate the Poll button and click on that to start the process.

create a post

Fill in the question you would like to ask your Facebook followers. Type in your two response choices in the fields below. Again, you only get two options for this (more are offered in Facebook Groups).

canon or nikon Facebook polls

Make your poll more visual by adding two photos or GIFs to go along with your poll options.

The upload buttons are located next to the fields and show up nicely cropped above the poll selections you decided on.

camera poll

Go to the bottom of the post to find the Share Now button. You can also choose to save as a draft or backdate the post.

schedule poll

Would you rather schedule your poll for the future?

For some reason Facebook only lets you do this by going to the Publishing Tools tab on your page.

Navigate to this page, click on the Create button, then start your poll from scratch, with the steps we just covered.

publishing tools

Click on the Share Now dropdown to reveal the Schedule option.

schedule the post

Making Facebook polls on your Facebooks Groups

Facebook Groups serve as useful tools when building community amongst your customers.

What’s more, is that the polls in Facebook Groups have a few more essential features compared to the ones you can make on your business page.

Navigate to your Facebook Group.

Start writing a post or click on the “…” button to reveal the Poll button and get it started.

Facebook polls in groups

In contrast to the polls on a business page, Facebook Groups let you create more than two. In fact, as of this article, there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the number of poll responses you can create.

So, start by typing in the question for your group users. Fill in all of the responses and add more options if you would like. Feel free to add a photo that corresponds with all of the poll selections you made.

more polling options

The Facebook Groups polls provide a few other features that aren’t available on a regular business page. One of them is at the bottom of the module.

Click on the Poll Options button to select if you’d like to allow anyone to add options or allow people to choose multiple options.

This is interesting since you can actually ask your customers to suggest features or other items for your polls.

Finally, the Post button has a scheduling tool next to it so there’s no need to go to the Publishing Tools like on your business page.

allow anyone to add options

Note: If you’re planning on developing a Facebook poll on a Facebook Event page, the functionality for this is the exact same as it is in a Facebook Group. 

Making Facebook polls in your stories

The final option for making a poll on Facebook is with a story. This is done through the Facebook mobile app, similar to Instagram Stories or Snapchat, where the story disappears after a period of time.

Begin by opening your Facebook page. Locate the Add to Story button and click on it.

Upload a photo or video from your phone device, or consider taking a photo or video directly in the Facebook app from your device camera.

Find the sticker button towards the top of the screen. Tap on that button to reveal some options.

add poll in story

On this page, you’ll be able to add several effects. Have fun playing around with these to make your stories more creative. But for this tutorial, click on the Poll button.

This shows up as a Yes/No poll with interactive buttons for users to click on. Move the poll to fit your story, and edit the text to ask a question and see how people will respond.

Click on the Next button and either share it to your Page’s Story or to both the Story and your News Feed. You’re most likely better off sharing to both since it should render more exposure. After that, the app delivers the results so that you can see how your users feel about the question.

Landing leads and making sales after you complete your Facebook polls

It doesn’t matter if you’re running a media company like ESPN or a consumer goods store like Tablo.

espn Facebook polls

Polls are great for all industries, but at some point, you’ll want to get users to take action. You’ll want to land a lead or get a sale.

tablo tv poll - Facebook polls

How do you go about doing that?

One solution is to utilize a third-party polling app. These apps may offer a variety of additional features, such as contests and quizzes and fields for collecting customer information. Having said that, it’s difficult to predict how long these tools will be around since Facebook has cut off similar apps in the past.

As for using general Facebook Polls and posts as listed above, here are some tips for engaging further and pushing users into your sales funnel:

  • Ask for mentions in the comments.
  • Ask for users to share the polls.
  • Keep in mind that the more likes you get the more people will end up seeing the poll.
  • You could always link to a different polling page like Google Forms, Doodle, or SurveyMonkey to capture all the information you need.
  • Link to landing pages on your website that relate to the poll – For instance, you may have a new feature release and use a poll to excite people about it. Just don’t forget to link to the actual feature page on your site!
  • Link directly to product pages that relate to the poll. An example would be asking people what their favorite thing to do in the snow is then linking to the new mittens you’re selling.

Final thoughts on Facebook polls

Facebook polls are one of the best ways to get people engaging with your content.

Experiment with polls on your business page, in groups, and in your Facebook stories to discover what types of polls work best for your audience.

Are you about to run a Facebook poll for the first time? Let us know about it in the comments section below!

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By Joe Warnimont

Joe is a Chicago-based writer focused on social media, WordPress, and eCommerce tools. When not riding his bike in Chicago he's camping in Wisconsin. View Joe's portfolio at joewarnimont.com to contact him and see past work.

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