To poll or not to Poll - that is the question (LinkedIn Mastering Tipz)

To Poll or not To Poll: that is the question ? What is the benefit to your audience in this new feature ? and what is the business benefit for you in using it ? (otherwise it is just a novel gimmick ?)

This feature will have some novelty value for you and your audience for a while ... some of that has already disappeared by the few polls we have already seen (exciting ones about Coca Cola or Pepsi etc). Novelty doesn't tend to add too much over the long haul in a business relationship ... you will probably get some initial new engagement from your audience .... but how much is that spike worth in business terms ? Not much.

So what should you do ? The key here is to find the business benefit to polls: and there is definitely business benefit in gaining a better understanding of your audience / customers

(1) Try starting with this: there is something to learn here

While Polls may be new to LinkedIn (and not so new on Facebook) .. the art (and science) of running Polls (and surveys) is old ... from last century.

There is a skill to be (learnt or employed and) applied to developing polls that deliver business value: how are you going to handle that in your business ? who is going to handle that ?

(2) The essence of polling

The essence of polling (surveys) is begin with the end in mind: what is the business outcome (learning) that you want out: what answer / response are you looking for and how will it help you and your business (otherwise why ask the poll ?)

(3) Questions for when you attempt your first poll

The polls functionality is fairly straight forward and intuitive (especially of you have used similar functionality on other platforms)

• How does your audience benefit from your polls ?

Why would they participate in your poll ? What is in it for them (the simpler the poll and the quicker it is easy to answer the less weight / importance this question has for your audience)

• What is the business benefit for you in using Polls ?

What if you understood it better would help you ?

• What will you do with the results of the Polls ?

Think of one question / aspect and ask a simple question around that

Side note 1: More functionality will come in future versions of the poll functionality perhaps being able to have more then four polls (surely this enhancement will be added) such as user being able to add their own poll options like they can on Facebook..

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Take action: the trick is combining these three elements (1) poll to what business advantage for you ? Ie what if you knew it about your customers (or prospects) would help you be more successful in delivering your business to them ? (2) why would your audience want to participate - what is in it for them (3) how to phrase your question and the four possible responses to satisfy (1) and (2) above 😉

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Bonus Tip: A good use of Polls with your Expert Model;

There is a great opportunity here with a little bit of planning to use a Poll to (1) create awareness around an issue with a carefully worded question (2) engage with your audience around that issue (3) orientate your audience around your mode / approach / solution related to that issue ... with some subtly ...

The primary audience of this blog is Entrepreneurs, Social Enterprise Executives and Business Development Executives