Twitter is a great social media platform for learning more about your industry and market. More than any other social media platform, perhaps, Twitter provides a place for users to vent fleeting opinions and share timely news and memes as consumers.
Business owners use Twitter’s social ecosystem to listen to consumer opinion and find new ways to interact with current and potential customers. It can be difficult to get information out of customers directly. Making use of Twitter’s polling features changes that! This article breaks down how to start applying effective Twitter Polling for your small business.
What Are Twitter Polls?
Business owners who have a Twitter presence at any capacity can run polls for interactive feedback. Twitter Polling is essentially the same as normal tweeting, except below the body of the tweet are 2-4 voting option slots. You control the lifetime of your Twitter Poll within the timeframe of 5 minutes and 1 week.
Who Can See Twitter Polls?
Twitter polling isn’t restricted to followers only. Anyone from Twitter can participate in the voting and automatically do so anonymously. Like any other tweet that goes out, polls can be shared, favorited, or replied to publicly on mobile and desktop apps. The results of the poll — the number of votes and percentage of votes given to each option — are attached to the tweet publicly and updated in real-time.
Why Use Twitter Polls?
You might think that running a Twitter Poll while you’re running a business is just too much to do, but consider the direct market insights the results can supply. A lot of businesses use Twitter Polling to gauge consumer trends and gather information on public opinion at particular moments. Researching your market with Twitter Polls is also just an awesome excuse to interact with customers, followers, and other Twitter users to generate a larger following.
How Are Twitter Polls Being Used for Small Business?
The purpose of your business using Twitter Polls can be anything from adding a clear personality to your brand to culling together direct market insight from social media.
Here are a few specific tips for using Twitter Polls that business have been successful for businesses.
Host Cultural-Connecting Polls
Consider hosting a poll related to live events, sports championships, TV, or national holidays to bring attention to your Twitter account by way of trending topics. Remember, finding a way to keep your poll on brand is key to keeping people focused on what you have to offer — so don’t get too sidetracked.
As long as your activity is connected to the culture of your target audience, Twitter Polling can help more of the right people discover your business. You can use their participation in polls to participate with your business.
Related: 2017 ThriveHive Marketing Calendar
Holidays, national observances, and events for creative marketing, all year round.
Humor the Crowd
Twitter can often be a place where brands and people interact more casually, compared to Facebook and Instagram. Small businesses can use a Twitter Poll to let their personality or brand voice shine through even more on social media.
Polls don’t have to be stark and research-focused in an obvious way. For a lot of Twitter users, a poll disrupts the normal tweet feed and offers a breath of fresh air, making it easy for small businesses to take advantage of a funny ballot option or an unlikely pair of answers to make someone laugh and look into your business.
Get Transparent Feedback
Polling on Twitter will help you get get feedback directly from your consumers. This is your opportunity to ask them questions you’ve always wondered about, with regard to what they’re thinking and how they feel.
Practice Social Listening
“Social Listening” is the process of monitoring and researching conversations in certain audiences—circulating around specific keywords, phrases, words, or brands—to find new opportunities in content creation. If you use Twitter Polls as a tool for social listening to generate more blog content down the road, then nothing stands in the way of generating more leads.
Increase Your Visibility
Hashtagging is welcome in Twitter Polls, as with normal tweeting, and will help you expose the poll to an even larger audience than your immediate followers. Also, users who engage with your poll are likely to check out your Twitter profile in the process. This will increase your visibility on social media as well as drive traffic to your website (if your profile contains a link to your site) if users have already taken a few seconds to at least consider voting in your poll so they’re bound to check out your profile in the process.
Don’t Make It Too Complicated
Polling doesn’t have to be hard. It’s a lot like a normal tweet, except you’re inviting your following to engage with you directly. You’re asking for their help. Ask about your products or services, ask about your industry and if people do certain things. Learn about your followers and audience so you can scale your business accordingly with a new service or product.
Twitter’s social ecosystem is incredible for business owners that learn to listen to consumer opinion, and as a result find new ways to interact with potential customers. The power of a vote is impactful.
