7 Ways to Use LinkedIn Polls to Increase Your Network and Engagement

If you're looking to grow your followers and improve your engagement stats on LinkedIn, one feature you need to explore is LinkedIn polls. LinkedIn polls are a great way to increase interaction with your audience, learn more about their interests, and even connect with new professionals in your field.

Depending on your connection size, LinkedIn offers every user a fantastic opportunity to network and interact with thousands and millions of people across different industries and locations.

Plus, LinkedIn polls are anonymous so your connections can feel free to answer honestly without fear of judgment!

Creating polls, on the one hand, is an excellent way to seek the opinion of your connections on matters that are important to you or your business. But again, polls can be pretty handy when you need to plan out the content you want to share with your audience.

We have leveraged this with interesting results to show. So, here, we'll discuss some practical tips to help you create and make the most of this fantastic feature.

#1 Make sure you have an engaged audience before creating polls

Let's face it. You're more likely to get more votes and reactions when you already have an active community of followers that often react, comment, and share your posts. With this, you know you're one step closer to getting massive responses when you create polls.

But there are other important ingredients that help you build more engagement. First, you want to make sure that you're posting content that resonates strongly with your audience.

The right content in front of the right audience at the right time is a fantastic combination. There's no way you're getting the best responses.

Next, take time to purposefully engage with others by commenting, reacting, and sharing people's posts. It is not okay to breeze in and breeze out.

If you're looking to build more connections, interacting with them is the way to go. This way, they know you're always there and will most likely engage with your posts.

Finally, you want to ensure that you're consistent with your presence on the platform. As people are reacting and commenting on your posts, make sure to also reply to them.

This goes a long way in building relationships and keeping your audience engaged. So, if you want to create successful LinkedIn polls, start by ensuring that you have an engaged audience.

#2 Ask relevant and interesting questions

Don't just create a LinkedIn poll for the sake of it. At least, you want your questions to spark off that all-important engagement each time. If you're going to create a poll, it is better to ask questions that are relevant, interesting, and in line with your business goals (or what your business represents).

While a particular question may sound very interesting to you, it may not be to your audience. Asking, for instance, "What is your favorite beverage in the morning?" may ignite some healthy debate among tea and coffee enthusiasts.

However, if your audience is primarily young people who do not care much about beverages, the engagement you get on that post will likely be low.

In addition to asking relevant questions, you want to be sure that it is interesting enough to your audience.

A question might be relevant but not interesting. It can be based on an ongoing social media conversation, political issues, or whatever else that can drive a conversation. But above all, strive to stay on your brand.

Asking questions that do not relate to your business in any way can make your audience a bit uncomfortable with your brand. They'll find it difficult to understand why you're asking such random questions.

If you must ask an off-brand question, make sure that it is still business-related. You can introduce a new product or service and use the poll to get feedback from your audience.

But if you're looking for the best engagement on LinkedIn polls, always strive to stay on brand with your questions.

When creating LinkedIn polls, there is no need to limit yourself to two options only. You can have up to 10 different answer choices in each of your LinkedIn polls! This way, you give your audience more room for creativity and allow them to better express their thoughts and opinions on the matter being discussed.

However, while you can have up to 10 answer choices, that doesn't mean you should. You want to make sure that the options are relevant and not too many.

If you're looking for the best engagement, limit your answer choices to between three and five. This way, people can easily scan through the options and choose the one that resonates most with them.

Your questions should also be short, precise, and to the point. No one wants to read a long question only to find out it could have been asked better. Get straight to the point with your questions so people can understand what you're talking about and quickly engage with your post.

Finally, avoid using loaded questions in your LinkedIn polls. These are questions that come with a pre-determined answer.

An example of a loaded question is, "Do you think company XYZ's new product launch was a failure?"

The question is loaded because it seems to suggest that the product launch was a failure, even before people have had a chance to answer the question.

Avoid using loaded questions in your LinkedIn polls so you can get the best engagement from your audience.

#3 Make the most of the characters available to you

When creating LinkedIn polls, you only have so much space to play around with. You want to make your text as punchy as possible. Don't just ask a question directly. Build a little context around it. That way, you'll be able to help your audience understand what the question is about.

People love stories. So, if possible, create a story that builds up to the question. Your poll can actually be linked to a post on LinkedIn or a blog, but the poll section should be concise. Consider adding a hook to make the text attention-grabbing.

Here's an example of how you can use storytelling in your LinkedIn polls:

This creates a relatable context for your audience and also gets them thinking about the best solution to the problem. It also shows that you understand the challenges they face as business owners.

#4 Create a post based on previous LinkedIn polls

LinkedIn polls help you gather important information about products, services, or ongoing conversations on specific topics.

When you create polls on these topics, you can use the insights you've gathered to create more LinkedIn posts.

You can even use these polls to determine the kind of content your audience prefers to see. Doubt this will endear your audience to you the more. It assures them that their opinions matter and spurs them to participate again when you create more polls.

When people learn that their feedback has turned into something like a post, it can be pretty encouraging. You may also want to tag those that made significant contributions to your polls.

This is a great way to show your appreciation for their participation and encourage more engagement in the future.

By creating content based on LinkedIn polls, you're not only able to show that you value your audience's opinions, but you're also able to produce content that they're more likely to engage with.

This is a win-win situation that can help you boost your engagement rates significantly.

#5 Gather Consumer Feedback for Products and Services

If you've recently released or launched a new product or service, consider using LinkedIn to gather consumer insights on your new market offerings.

There are a number of ways to go about this. To begin with, you can ask general questions about how they are using that service or product, whether it is solving their problems or not.

Ask specific questions about certain features of the product. What would you like us to add, remove, or improve on? In what way has our new [product name] helped you or your business?

Consider creating awareness polls, too. Have you heard about our new product, [product name]? What do you think of our new [product name]? Which features of the product do you like the most?

Awareness polls are beneficial, especially if you're launching a new product in a very competitive market. You can use these polls to see how well your target audience is receiving your new offering.

If you find that the awareness for your new product is low, LinkedIn polls can be a great way to jumpstart conversations about it.

You can also use LinkedIn polls to get feedback on your existing products and services.

Are they still relevant? Do they need to be updated? What do people think of them? These questions can help you determine whether you need to make changes to your offerings or not.

And finally, consumer feedback gathered from LinkedIn polls can help you create better content around their needs.

#6 Research emerging trends in your niche/industry

If you're targeting a B2B and enterprise-level market, LinkedIn polls can help you discover what people are saying about emerging markets and industry trends.

If you offer services in a specific niche, you could also run a poll on that to get further insights into the industry.

Consider using statistics to stir up the conversation. Another way to start the conversation is by stating your opinion on those trends and throwing the conversation open to your audience. Join the conversation in the comment section.

Reply to comments and ask further questions to engage with people. This is an effective way to increase your engagement on LinkedIn.

You could also use this opportunity to position yourself as an expert in your field.

When done right, LinkedIn polls can be a powerful way to connect with your target audience, gather insights, and create content.

Just remember to keep your questions on-brand, make the most of the characters available to you, and create follow-up content based on your findings.

#7 Share your LinkedIn poll results

You should consider encouraging those who have bothered to vote by sharing the poll results. After the poll closes, let your followers know how many people voted.

Even if you don't want to share the figures, let people know the statistics from the polls. The next time you post a poll, you can be sure that they'll care to vote again.

If you want to take things a step further, you can create an infographic with the poll results or even write a blog post on it.

This is a great way to increase engagement and get more people interested in your polls. It also helps you show that you care about what your audience thinks.

Final thoughts

The LinkedIn algorithm favors polls, so the best time to start is now. Remember to focus on creating polls that help you promote your services and products and connect you with the right audience.

Don't forget to also use LinkedIn polls to generate content ideas, understand your target market, and even create new marketing strategies. With the right approach, you'll be able to use LinkedIn polls to reach your business goals.

If you need help creating or managing your LinkedIn account, please don't hesitate to contact us. We'll be more than happy to assist you.