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How to Access, Manage and Create the LinkedIn Poll Feature

by LinkedIn Training

LinkedIn Polls were introduced to Australian LinkedIn members in May 2020 and are available for LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Company Pages and LinkedIn Groups.

LinkedIn has positioned this feature as a “quick, easy and fully-virtual way to solicit feedback from your network”. I’ve observed a mixed response from my LinkedIn community about this feature, with the concern that it may be overused by some, and therefore diluting the potential value polls offer.

Like all LinkedIn features, I recommend you take a look and then decide how it may (nor may not) add value to your goals for LinkedIn and your content marketing focus.

Watch Me Access the LinkedIn Poll Feature from my LinkedIn Profile

In the May Lunch & Learn I showed attendees how to access the LinkedIn Poll feature via their LinkedIn Profiles.

How to Create a LinkedIn Poll

  • Start a new post and click the “Create a Poll” option in the chooser menu
  • Type your question, enter up to four answer options, and select the poll’s duration—between 24 hours and up to two weeks
  • Write up a post to go along with your poll—you can include hashtags to help your poll get more attention
  • Push the poll live to either your connections, specific Groups you’re in, or to anyone across the LinkedIn network. By targeting specific Groups with your poll, you may get more relevant insights. I’ve definitely seen more polls in Digital Marketing groups than in my newsfeed.

How to Leverage LinkedIn Poll Results

How to choose to leverage your LinkedIn Poll results will depend on why you chose to create the poll in the first place. In my case, I created the poll so I could test the new feature in preparation for my Lunch and Learn attendees. This virtual training offers bite sized LinkedIn training for business and these sessions are run each month where I share the latest LinkedIn features and suggest how you may leverage them.

Here’s the poll I created that I mention in the video above – please note that it is no longer viewable from the featured section of my profile, but you can view it here.

how to access and use the linkedin poll feature

LinkedIn advises that while your poll is collecting insights from your network, you can easily keep an eye on the activity in real-time, such as how many votes have been cast, results for each option, and how much time is left for voting. Only you, the poll creator, can also see who voted and what they cast their vote for.

Once the poll closes, you can see the poll results, including the percentage of votes for each option and the total vote count. And this is where the opportunity lies in this feature, but tread carefully! If you are curious about why someone voted a certain way, you can message them from directly within the poll.  However, please only do this for the purpose of a genuine conversation, not as a sales qualification, as this is misleading in nature and a disincentive for that person to contribute to LinkedIn polls if you approach it this way.

Polls were rolled out globally on mobile and desktop in May, so hopefully you have it and can now use it.  Please let me know in the comments below what you think!

Karen Hollenbach

Karen Hollenbach

As the Founding Director of Think Bespoke I help individuals and organisations unlock their potential with LinkedIn. Sign up to my E-insights for LinkedIn tips.

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