How to Create A Poll On Instagram to Maximize Engagement

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Instagram polls can take your engagement to the next level.

But first, you have to create Instagram polls that your audience finds irresistible.

Then, you can compel your audience to vote and then collect valuable information.

In this guide, I’ll show you how an Instagram poll works, how to create a poll on Instagram, and Instagram poll ideas to use.

Let’s begin.

How an Instagram poll works

An Instagram poll lets you ask a question and provide options for your audience. For polls on Instagram Stories, you can have a relevant image or video in the background.

When businesses run polls on Instagram, they often want to dig up information about their audience. The information can then be used to improve products, services, or content.

Instagram allows you to create a poll in 3 major sections:

• Instagram Stories: Followers who view your stories can see and vote in polls. Like other Stories, an Instagram Story poll will disappear in 24 hours. Of course, you have the option of keeping it alive by adding it to a Story highlight.
• Instagram group chats: If you need to make some decisions in a group chat, a poll lets you know every participant’s position.
• Instagram posts and reels: Now, Instagram allows you to add polls to posts and reels. So, if you want to know what your audience thinks about a topic, add a poll to your post.

Instagram polls allow you to create many interaction opportunities with your audience.

Why you should create Instagram polls

If you’ve been paying attention, I already mentioned engagement as one reason to create Instagram polls.

But there are more.

Here are 5 reasons to put Instagram polls on your list of activities:

• Know your audience: If you want to serve your audience effectively, you need to know what they want. Polls can help you understand your audience’s needs. And with that, you can create better products.
• Drive engagement: Most people who see your poll will pause and pick a side. This gets followers more engaged with your brand.
• Get feedback: Through polls, you can get followers involved in your business decisions. Which variation of your product do they prefer? Which product feature do they use most? What do they use your product for? Feedback from these polls can help you make better business decisions.
• Content creation: A poll itself is a content piece. So, if you’re thinking of what to post on Instagram, a poll is a good option for your posts and Stories.
• Ads: Since Instagram lets you run ads in Stories and feed, you can promote a poll to achieve goals like engagement, awareness, or sales.

That said, let’s go into how you can create a poll on Instagram.

How to create a poll on Instagram

Let’s see how to create polls on Instagram Stories, group chats, and posts.

How to create a poll on Instagram Stories

Go to your Instagram timeline and click on the “+” icon at the top left corner or the bottom middle.

If you click at the top left corner, it will take you to the Story setup. However, the other option will present post types, and you can select “Story” from the post types.

Then, you can select a relevant video or image from your smartphone. After this, click on the stickers icon at the top of the page.

Doing this will show all the stickers you can use in this Story. Click on “Poll.”

On the next page, you can design your poll. First, you can add your question and the options for viewers.

Then, you can adjust the design color to fit your brand aesthetics.

Once you’re done with these steps, share your Instagram Story.

After this, you can see analytics by viewing your Story and clicking on “Activity” at the bottom left corner.

How to create a poll in group chats

In a group chat on Instagram, click on “+” at the bottom right and then “Stickers.”

On the next page, you’ll see a “Poll” icon and other stickers.

After clicking “Poll,” you can enter your poll question and options on the next page.

Unlike the other 2 poll options, Instagram allows you to have more than 4 options for polls in group chats.

Once you’re done with the question and options, click “Create poll.”

How to create a poll in posts and reels

Instagram now allows you to add polls to your posts and reels. The steps are similar to creating a post.

Click on the “+” icon at the bottom middle of your timeline. Then select the image or video you want to use and select “Next.”

But now, you’ll see “write a caption or add a poll” instead of just “write a caption.”

Once you click on the caption box, you’ll see a poll button below the box.

Click on the button to create a poll. You can add your poll question and then enter the options.

After doing this, publish your post. Once you publish it, viewers will be able to vote in the poll.

Instagram poll ideas

Want to create Instagram polls but struggling to find the right ideas?

Here are 15 Instagram poll ideas you can use for various purposes:

1. Yes or no

Some questions just require yes or no answers. 

As simple as this may look, you can use it for various purposes. Most times, you’ll find it useful in getting feedback from your audience.

For example, if you’re unsure whether customers use a particular product feature or not, you can ask a question about it.

It can also work for research. Will customers use a feature if you add it to your product?

Here’s an example from Alexx Marketing:

So, you can really get creative with this idea.

2. This or that

This Instagram poll idea is most useful when presenting similar options to your audience. For instance, you can upload an image containing variations of a product and let your audience pick a preferred option.

So, if you sell pizza, you can ask your audience to pick between Pepperoni and Cheese pizza.

If you run a travel agency, you can ask your audience to pick between two cities.

Here’s an example:

Results from this Instagram poll can show your audience’s preferences.

3. Poll story highlights

If you want to collect feedback from your audience for much longer than 24 hours, collect polls into Story highlights.

You can even go a step further by planning a few polls about a single topic. Then, you can publish and collect them into Story highlights.

Poll Story highlights can engage people who visit your profile. And it’s one of the many Instagram Story highlights ideas that work.

If you visit BuzzFeed Quizzes Instagram page, you’ll see a Polls highlight:

Inside the highlight, BuzzFeed displayed polls around various topics.

Using polls is also a good way to optimize your Instagram Story highlights for better engagement.

4. Favorite pick

We can’t all like the same things. It’s just a fact of life.

But when people like things, they like to show off their position. You can create polls that provide similar options and let your followers slug it out.

This can be a fun way for them to defend their positions.

But beyond that, you can get information on what your audience prefers.

Here’s an example from Tomike, an influencer:

The Instagram post pits 3 flavors of the same drink against one another. Beyond getting feedback, this creates awareness for the 3 flavors.

Here’s another example from Chipotle:

The poll results will show their most popular options with customers. As a result, even new customers can try out popular options.

Favorite pick is a great way to exploit social proof to create awareness.

5. Product use cases

People buy your product for the problems it can solve for them. And by showing use cases, you give them authentic reasons to buy your product.

For example, think of situations where people need your product. State this situation and provide options ranging from “yes I already use it” to “adding it to cart right now.”

JVN hair practiced this in one of its polls:

The brand combined social proof from UGC and a poll to compel followers to take action. So, you can collect UGC and use a poll to spice it up.

Exploit all possible ways to showcase product use cases in Instagram polls.

6. Trending topics

Trending topics always come with people picking sides on a topic. Whatever the topic is about, you can craft a few questions to take advantage of the buzz.

This can help you engage followers and stay on top of their minds.

7. Promote product discount

When you run a discount on Instagram, you want to make every potential buyer aware of it.

One way to increase awareness and sales is to use polls to promote your discount.

In fact, the follower doesn’t even need to pick an option. Once they see the poll, the message is clear.

And if the product is on their shopping list, they’ll take advantage of the discount offer.

8. Guess what/who

When we see a familiar situation, we try to predict what comes next.

This is why the guess what/who idea can compel your audience to engage with your poll. 

For example, you can tell your audience to guess what your business will be announcing soon. This can create awareness as your followers now expect an announcement from you.

Here’s an example by PrettyLittleThing:

The brand prompts followers to guess where these people are going based on how they’re dressed.

This idea can engage your followers.

9. Holidays

Every year comes with many holidays. And these holidays provide opportunities to engage your followers and sell more products.

One way to engage them is to create a poll about the holiday.

This can be a simple question about what they’ll be doing during the holiday and exciting options they can pick from.

You can even ask ahead of the holiday about what they want from your brand during the holiday and display relevant options. There’s also an option to promote discounts.

Holidays provide many poll ideas for Instagram.

10. Product teasers

If you have a new product coming out, you want to get your prospects fired up about it.

Polls can be a great tool to educate your audience about the product.

You can show followers its features, benefits, and use cases.

For example, you can ask what your followers will use your product for once they lay their hands on it and then list its use cases as options.

You can easily cook up a few questions to get your followers salivating for your new product.

11. Rate this

What do your customers think about a product or a specific feature?

This Instagram poll idea can deliver product feedback from your customers.

You can tell your customer to rate your product by providing options like 25%,50%,75%, and 100%. Options like poor, good, very good, and excellent will also work well.

But beyond the full product, you can ask customers to rate individual features. This can inform features to improve or remove from your product.

And customers will be happy to provide this feedback.

12. Would you rather

This is another idea to get feedback from your followers.

In this poll, you can provide multiple options about what your followers would rather do. 

For example, it can be how they’ll use a product or how they approach a task.

This can provide insights into your audience’s preferences.

13. Promote website content

This is simple.

All you have to do is ask a question that your content piece answers and provide options.

Then, in the next Story, you can link to the web page for people who want more information. This idea can also work for polls in your Instagram posts.

When people pick an option in the poll and see how others have voted, they may want to read your post to see who is correct. 

14. Competition

You can sell more of your popular products when you create a form of competition.

For example, if you sell a product with multiple use cases, you can create a few polls, with each poll featuring 2 use cases against each other. Then, winners can progress to the next stage till the final stage.

You can also do this between products to create social proof for your popular products. People who don’t have the popular product can be compelled to buy through this poll.

Here’s an example by BuzzFeed:

The company ran 3 rounds of movie polls to get the best holiday movie.

And bonus point: competitions are also fun.

15. Fun

Sometimes, a funny question may pop up in your mind and you want to know what your audience thinks. Or you may find a funny argument on social media and ask what your followers think.

The main aim of this poll is to inject a bit of happiness into your follower’s day.

Here’s an example from BuzzFeed:

When I saw this poll, I had to run the process through my mind before picking an option. It’s funny that wearing shoes can have many approaches.

So, find a fun question relevant to your industry and put a smile on your followers’ faces. 

Conclusion

Instagram polls are fun ways to engage your audience, collect feedback, and promote your products.

Luckily, you can run polls on Instagram every week and skyrocket your audience engagement.

What’s your favorite Instagram poll idea?

Use it to create a poll on Instagram this week.

If you want to create a quiz too, check out my guide on how to create an Instagram quiz.