Find out how you can harness the power of social media polling to get a leg up in your business | CFM
IMPROVING BRANDS AND BUSINESSES WITH THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA POLLING
Everyone knows that the cornerstone of a successful business is to know the customer – their wants, their needs and ultimately what makes them tick so that businesses in turn can serve them better. The question of course is how? By asking them with a poll of course.
Back in the day, businesses and brands commissioned polls and focus groups to determine what customers liked or didn’t about their products and services. This involved going door to door among a group of people in an area, getting them to fill out forms, and conducting interviews which were then collated to determine an answer; a time-consuming task to say the least.
Fortunately, the growth of social media has now empowered brands with a new tool that allows them to immediately reach out to the consumer and get opinions that can be constructively used to drive the direction of a business. Enter social media polling.
WHAT’S SOCIAL MEDIA POLLING?
A poll allows a brand or business to find out the preferences and opinions of a group of customers. Social media polling essentially relies on social media platforms as a means to interact and get opinions straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth – the consumer.
Rather than a massive stack of questions asking everything under the sun, social media polls are usually short, sweet, and to the point with simple questions and set replies with two or three predefined answers. The nature of this format promotes more engagement as it’s simply a matter of tapping on a reply rather than having to think and type out a long answer on a smartphone.
Unfortunately, the format precludes complicated results that only a comprehensive survey would yield though social media polling still has the advantage as it allows for businesses to seek opinions and ideas from customers while getting some basic market research done at negligible cost and in a short period of time.
There is also the possibility of a poll being shared and going viral which offers even wider access to a customers’ personal social network. Currently, the major social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all offer a means to conduct polls in some form or fashion with followers and subscribers.
WHY WOULD A BUSINESS OR BRAND WANT TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA POLLING?
The most immediate applications of social media polling would be to get insight and feedback on the products and services that a business or brand offers and how to improve them. Another major benefit is to encourage meaningful conversations between consumers and brand owners, all of which will help to improve the visibility and profile of a business.
On the other side of the fence, social media polling is beneficial to consumers as well as it allows us, as a customer, to make our voices heard where it matters to help us get the products and services we want such as asking for better broadband coverage and better quality of service.
Some examples of an ideal question for a social media poll include –
Should a new upcoming product appear in blue or red?
Do you prefer to have a cheaper discounted product or to have more gifts bundled with it at launch?
Do you prefer more broadband coverage or better quality of service?
These kinds of questions can help drive business decisions in a positive fashion.
It doesn’t necessarily have to all be hard statistics or marketing related stuff – social media polling can be used to engage customers and followers with fun questions too such as
Should pineapples be considered a topping on pizza?
Do you prefer to support sports team A or sports team B?
With all that being said, social media polling is not only immensely cost-effective (it’s virtually free!) but is an immediate and effective means of getting an opinion straight from a customer, making it an indispensable addition to any marketer’s arsenal. It takes some experimentation to master but the results are well worth the effort.
Happy polling!
Source: SHOUT H2, 2018
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