Whether they're just for fun or for informal research purposes, Instagram Polls are a fun way to interact with your Instagram followers. You can customize the question and the two responses (or stick to a straight-forward yes or no) and choose a background from your camera roll.
Once responses start rolling in, you can see how your followers voted, and even get a breakdown on how many people voted for each option and who exactly voted for each. After you collect responses, you can share the results with your followers so they can also see how people voted overall (but not who voted for what).
Here's how it's done.
How to create an Instagram Poll on your Story1. Open the Instagram app. Tap your profile icon at the top-left of the screen or swipe right to add a Story.
If you don't have any live Stories, you can create a new one by tapping your profile icon. Abigail Abesamis Demarest2. Take a photo by tapping the circle on the bottom of the screen or choose a photo or video from your camera roll to post by tapping the small picture icon at the bottom-left of the screen. You can also tap the "Aa" Create icon to pull up a blank background.
3. Tap the Stickers icon, which looks like a square smiley face, at the top of the screen to pull up a menu of post additions.
Tap this icon to add a poll, location tag, GIFs, and more. Abigail Abesamis Demarest4.
In the pop-up menu, tap the Poll icon to ask a question with two answer prompts. To ask a sliding scale question, tap the Sliding Scale icon, which should be located next to the Poll sticker option.
5. Tap the Ask a question… field, then type your question or a quick phrase on whatever topic you want people to vote on. For a regular poll, tap the Yes and No boxes to change the responses, or keep the boxes as-is if that works for your question.
For a sliding scale poll, select an emoji to add to the sliding scale.
6. When you're finished editing the question and response fields, tap Done.
7. Tap Your Story to share your poll with all your followers, or Close Friends to share the poll with your Close Friends list. You can also search for a friend or choose one from the Suggested list to send the poll via direct message.
Once your poll is ready to be posted, tap "Your Story" to share it with all your followers.
Abigail Abesamis Demarest How to view and share results of your Instagram Story Poll1. To view the results of an Instagram poll you've created, open the Instagram app and tap your profile icon at the top-left of the screen to view your Story.
2. On the Story slide with the poll, you'll see the overall results. For more information on how many people voted and what each person voted for, swipe up on the Story slide or tap Seen by on the bottom-left of the screen.
After people start voting on your poll, you'll see the overall results on the Story slide.
Abigail Abesamis Demarest 3. To share the results of your poll to your Story, tap Share Results, then select Your Story or Close Friends.
You can see a detailed view of the poll results, with an option to share them. Abigail Abesamis Demarest Ideas for Instagram Polls For sliding scale polls, you can customize the emoji used.
Abigail Abesamis Demarest 
1. Open the Instagram app on your device and tap the Messages icon in the top-right corner.
2. Select a recent conversation or tap the New Message icon in the top-right corner.
3. On the message screen, tap the blue camera icon next to the textbox at the bottom of the screen.
Tap the blue camera icon to take a picture and add a poll to it. Grace Eliza Goodwin/Insider4. Take a photo or select one from your camera roll, and tap the Stickers icon, which looks like a square smiley face, in the top-right corner of the screen.
5. Select Poll in the pop-up menu.
6. A poll box will appear over your image — type your poll question into the Ask a question section, and tap inside the Yes and No boxes to change the answer options.
7. When your poll is ready, tap Send at the bottom-middle of the screen.
Note: When you send an Instagram Poll through direct messages, the poll is not interactive, meaning the recipients will not be able to answer the poll by selecting an answer option in the image. They will have to give their answers via a separate message beneath your poll message.
Abigail Abesamis Demarest
Abigail Abesamis Demarest is a contributing writer for Insider based in New York.
She loves a good glazed donut and nerdy deep dives into the science of food and how it's made.
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by Jen McGuire
Decision-making is hard, especially now that we have a million choices for even the most boring decision. I mean, try finding just one white T-shirt that feels like it's going to work for you without wondering if the other 300 white T-shirts you've looked at might be a smidge better. Thankfully, it seems Instagram has come up with an solution for that. On Tuesday, the social media sharing giant rolled out poll results for Instagram Stories, and I'm assuming it's going to make life easier or harder, depending on what're you're polling.
According to a blog post by Instagram, polls in Instagram Stories will allow you to ask your friends a question and give them a chance to vote on answers. Sort of like a Magic 8 Ball, but with infinitely better results. Instagram explained in the blog post:
Whether you’re trying to plan tomorrow’s outfit, choosing which class to take or figuring out where to go for dinner, now it’s easy to share a two-option poll right in your story. After you’ve taken a photo or video for your story, select the “poll” sticker and place it anywhere you’d like — you can write out your own question and even customize the poll choices.
So if you have questions like, "Should I buy a cat?" or "How would I look with a shaved head?" and want to give your followers the chance to vote on the answers, now is your chance.
Not only will your followers get to vote, they will also get to a chance to keep up with the results, according to Instagram:
After you’ve shared your poll, your friends and followers can immediately start voting and see real-time results.Once someone has voted on your poll, they’ll see which choice is in the lead at any given moment. And if they watch your story again later, they’ll see the latest results.
Of course, this is basically the coolest thing ever.
Want to know how to see your own results from the poll? Instagram has made it incredibly easy not only to see your poll results in Instagram stories, but also to see how many followers voted each way and, perhaps even more importantly, which followers voted for what. Instagram explained:
To see your own poll results, swipe up to open the viewers list for that part of your story. There you’ll see everything you need to get the best answer for your question. Not only will you see how many votes each option received, but you’ll also see who voted and what option they chose. That way, you’ll be able to compare votes from the friends and followers whose opinions you trust most. And just like your story, your poll and its results will disappear after 24 hours.
This is the first interactive feature Instagram has rolled out, and it's promising that'll be a hit. After all, making decisions is just about the least fun thing a person can do, but voting on other people's decisions is the best. What could go wrong?
And let's not forget... Snapchat has yet to introduce a polling option for users. Smooth sailing ahead for the geniuses at Instagram who seem to know us all so well.
Everyone take a moment to think about all the things you might be able to get done in your day if you leave the decisions to someone else. Napping, staring blankly off into space, snacking. The world will be your oyster as you leave the decision-making to your minions (I mean, friends) on Instagram.
Along with the polling feature for Instagram Stories, the social media platform also rolled out two new tools on Wednesday; a color picker for text and brushes, and an alignment tool for stickers and texts. Now all that needs to be done is for you to decide what your first polling question should be. Happy voting and polling!
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Polls appeared in Instagram* Stories for a long time, they are actively used by ordinary users, bloggers and large companies. For a business, if it learns to organically use the possibilities of social networks, poll stickers can help a lot with the involvement of subscribers.
In the article “Instagram Stories Basics*: Posting Rules and Useful Features” we talk about different ways of creating stories, secrets and life hacks of the format.
Instagram* has four types of poll stickers to engage followers in Stories:
Let's see how to add all these polls to Instagram stories* and how to use them for business.
To post a question, go to your story, upload your photo or video, and then select the "Questions" widget in the settings. You can choose the color of the widget, as well as increase or decrease it.
To view the responses to your questions, click in the lower right corner of the post in Stories - the responses will be there. You can scroll through all the responses or share one of them.
If you'd like to share a response or answer one of your subscribers' questions, open the response you want, then click Share Response. A form will appear in which there will be your question and the answer to it. You can choose your background, as well as add your comment and publish it in stories.
You can share answers to stories, transfer responses there and write your comments on themTo add a vote, go to stories, add your photo or video. Go to settings and select the "Polls" widget. As with questions, polls can be color-coded and resized.
In the survey, you write the text of your question and two possible answers. It is better if they are short - the fields for answers are very small. Everything, poll can be published!
After the poll is published, you will see what percentage of people voted for a particular answer. In addition, you can open the analytics of your story and check which subscribers chose this or that option. And the statistics also show a clear number of those who voted and saw the stories with the survey.
To add a voting scale, go to the stories section, select a picture or video for the background, and then select the voting scale icon in the settings. She can change the background and size, and also choose the emoji that will be used in the timeline.
If you go to the voting scale statistics, you can see what answer each of the voters gave. By clicking on the statistics icon, you can see exactly how the people who viewed the publication voted, as well as send them a message in direct. In addition, the total number of viewers and voters will be indicated there.
To add a sticker quiz or sticker test, go to your story, select a background video or photo. In the stickers, find the widget that says "Test". Give the form a name or write a question, suggest answers and indicate the correct one. You can change the number of options, color and size of the window.
In the statistics, you can see how the subscribers answered and who gave the correct answer.The subscriber will be able to choose one of the proposed options and immediately find out if he voted correctly.
The account owner has access to statistics where you can see what answer was given most often, what each user chose, which of the subscribers chose the correct option. To see it, swipe up on the story.
Test stickers are suitable for conducting surveys, intellectual and entertaining quizzes, competitions, and data collection.
You can create stories with polls and other stickers in the delayed posting mode using the SMMplanner service.
All you need is to register and choose the appropriate tariff. The blog will help with the search for ideas for Instagram* Stories, and the service will help with the technical side of the implementation.
Great help! You ask subscribers a direct question, and they answer it. They answer because people generally love surveys, tests and all that. And also because the question is asked not in a post, but in a story, where most of the content is generated by ordinary people, and there is no feeling that “this store is asking me for show.”
You can use the results of polls and polls on Instagram* for internal research of the audience of your business, as well as simply fulfill the desires of your audience: for example, suggest in stories to choose which drink will be seasonal this winter - salted caramel latte or gingerbread latte . Feedback from people will help you decide.
Companies actively use questions and voting in stories to engage their audience What else do polls on Instagram* do is to draw the attention of your followers to values and ideas that are meaningful to you.
You can ask questions to people in such a way that, by the answers, they feel like a single group that shares your values.
In addition, you can invite people to ask you questions, and from these questions to collect ideas for content, and write about what your target audience is most interested in. You will learn a lot about your audience if you just ask them. Questions and polls - it's so easy!
Pottery school uses different types of polls to communicate with followersHere are some story poll ideas that can engage your audience:
For example, you can have a vote on whether people like the new sign or which of the two logo options you should choose. Trust me, you'll get a lot more feedback if you ask questions! Try different options for working with voting, study how your subscribers react to them, and apply this engagement tool to your business.
The article has been updated. First published November 12, 2018
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The poll feature on Instagram appeared quite recently and is implemented in the Strories format.
Previously, to conduct a poll, you had to ask it in the text of the post, list the answer options and wait for someone to write in the comments. Not very convenient, right?
The new surveys allow you to ask questions and offer answers (no more than two so far). The poll is displayed for 24 hours, but if you want, you can pin it to your profile in the highlights section.
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which will be the substrate, the background of our survey. The picture should attract attention so that when a person flips through the Stories, his eye can catch on to something.
After the picture is selected, you need to click on the sticker icon at the top of the screen or swipe up from the bottom of the screen. An additional menu will appear in which we select "Poll".
The poll creation screen appears. Let's formulate a question. It is best to use short, one-word questions that can be answered with "Yes" or "No". Then enter 2 answers. In our example, the question "Tea or coffee?" and choice of answer.
Learn more about Instagram Stories
To view poll results, open a story with our poll and swipe up from the bottom of the screen. A statistics screen appears showing who viewed the Poll History, who voted, voting statistics, and who chose which option.
In the results, you can find the "Share results" button, through which you can publish a story that will show the results of the vote.
You can edit the results history as you wish.
Add GIFs, another poll, geolocation, hashtags, and so on.
Very useful article: How to get live followers on Instagram
Depending on the niche in which you work, you can use the following ideas for conducting surveys:
Generate ideas, conduct polls, and engage your followers to interact with your account.
Best ideas for Instagram photos
The voting function may be missing for several reasons:
