How To Create Instagram Story Polls That Engage Your Fans
Are you interested in using Instagram story polls to boost engagement for a crucial social media channel?
Instagram polls are one of the best ways to engage your audience on Instagram. They’re easy to create and easy for your followers to interact with.
In this post, we share tips on how to create polls using Instagram Stories along with a list of poll ideas.
How to create Instagram polls in Stories
Here’s a rough overview of the steps. I’ll go into each step in more detail below.
- Tap Your Story in the Stories section of Instagram.
- Select the image, video or music you want to include in your story.
- Tap the sticker icon.
- Tap the Poll sticker.
- Enter a question in the Question field.
- Decide to keep the Yes or No options, or change them to suit your needs.
- Add additional options as needed.
- Tap the color wheel to cycle through different colors for the heading.
- Tap Done when you’re finished editing your story. This does not share it, yet.
- Add additional content, such as text, a filter or music.
- View the preview of your poll. If everything looks good, tap the arrow in the bottom, right-hand corner. If not, tap the poll to continue editing it.
- Choose your sharing options (select Your Story to share it publicly to your audience), then tap Share.
Let’s go a little more in depth in case you’ve never created an Instagram story before.
When you first open the Instagram app, the Your Story button is located at the left-hand side of Instagram Stories, which is located at the very top of the app.
Once you tap Your Story to start creating a new Instagram story, the app displays your camera roll by default. There are four options in this section for adding content to your story:
- Music – Add music or a trending sound to your story.
- Templates – Choose from a limited list of Add Yours templates. These aren’t useful for polls.
- Photos – Filter your camera roll by only showing images.
- Videos – Filter your camera roll by only showing videos.
These options are available for all stories, not just the poll feature.
The music option adds music to your story instead of an image or video. It showcases a record background behind your poll.
There’s an option to add music or a trending sound later if you use an image or video instead.
Alternatively, tap the Camera option in the camera roll to take a new image or video for your story.
Once you decide on what content you want to include in your story, tap the stickers button located amongst the buttons in the top, right-hand corner of the app.
Tap the Poll button to create a poll, though Questions and the emoji reaction slider are similar stickers in that they give you opportunities to gather feedback from your audience.
When you first add the poll sticker to your story, it has default text.
Change the heading that has the colored background so that it contains the question you want to ask your audience.
You don’t have to ask a Yes or No question. You can edit the Yes or No default options to say anything you want. You can even add additional options for a maximum of four.
If you click the color wheel at the top of the app, you can cycle between a few different colors: black, red, magenta, purple, orange, green and blue.
When you tap Done, continue editing as if you’re creating any other story by adding text, a filter, music and more.
Options for these are next to the original Stickers button you tapped earlier.
When you’re done editing your story, tap the arrow in the bottom, right-hand corner to share it.
Your Story is selected by default. This shares it publicly so your audience can see it.
The Close Friends option is mostly for personal accounts who have created a dedicated Close Friends list on Instagram for people they know personally.
Questions and emoji reaction sliders
The Questions sticker works in two ways: Q&A or audience feedback.
By default, the question section of the sticker says “Ask me a question.” If you leave it this way, your audience can ask you questions, and you can answer them in subsequent stories.
Otherwise, replace the default text with a question.
Similar to the poll sticker, the Questions sticker has a color wheel that allows you to edit the color of the sticker.
The emoji reaction slider sticker works in a similar way.
You ask your audience a question, then choose which emoji should represent your audience’s emotion toward the question on the slider.
Your viewers then drag the slider until it represents how much of that emotion they’re feeling.
For example, if you post a picture from the top of a mountain looking down, you can use the frightened emoji and ask your audience, “how scary does this view look?”
If they don’t think it’s scary, they place the slider toward the left. If they do find it scary, they drag the slider more toward the right.
This sticker also has a color wheel option.
17 ideas for Instagram poll questions
1. Would you rather…
- Would you rather go fishing alone in the forest or the ocean?
- Would you rather use oversized knitting needles or a yard needle?
2. True or false
- True or false: smallmouth bass are freshwater fish
- True or false: sewing needles for knitting projects are called yarn needles
3. Which do you prefer?
This one’s fairly simple.
Just use “which do you prefer?” in your poll’s heading, and add choices as options.
4. What’s the best way to…
- What’s the best way to catch smallmouth bass?
- What’s the best way to add stitch patterns to a knitting project?
5. How do you…
- How do you organize your fishing bait?
- How often do you clean your knitting needles?
6. Who is your…
- Who is your go-to person to fish with?
- Who is the person you create most of your knitting projects for?
7. What is your favorite…
- What is your favorite bait type to use?
- What is your favorite knitting pattern for?
8. What is your least favorite…
- What is your least favorite species of fish to catch?
- What is your least favorite knitting stitch?
9. Do you want…
- Do you want to catch the biggest fish available in every body of water you fish at?
- Do you want more knitting patterns for smaller projects or larger projects?
10. You can only choose one
This is a common poll found on social media.
You’re given a list of common options that all relate to the same subjects, such as common snack brands, but you can only choose one.
11. One has to go
This is similar to the previous question, only this one requires you to eliminate only a single option.
The trick here is to ensure all options are beloved in your niche.
12. Have you ever…
- Have you ever caught a particular species of fish on bait they normally don’t attack?
- Have you ever returned to a knitting project you previously gave up on?
13. What’s more important
- What’s more important in fishing?
- What’s more important for a successful knitting project?
14. This or that
A simple poll in which viewers are a given choice between two options.
When you use this question type, create multiple stories at a time so viewers have multiple “this or that” polls to interact with as they scroll through your story.
Example:
- Poll 1: salty or sweet
- Poll 2: sweet or savory
- Poll 3: mild or spicy
- Poll 4: hot or cold
15. What happens next
This is a fun three-story game you can play with your audience.
Choose a video where something interesting, exciting or unexpected happens. It should be related to your niche.
It can be your video or a video that’s trending in your niche. Just make sure you give credit if you borrow someone else’s video.
The first story should show the video clip, but it should cut off right before the interesting/exciting part happens.
The second story should have a still frame of the cutoff with the poll asking your viewer “What happens next?”
Give your viewers multiple options to pick from with one of them being the correct answer.
The third story should show the clip in its entirety, revealing the correct answer.
16. Trivia
This one is simple enough.
Create a series of polls that ask your viewers trivia questions related to your niche.
Create at least three Instagram polls whenever you use this tactic, but you can add as many as you want in a single “session.”
17. Product questions
Here are a few brand or product-related questions to ask your audience:
- What type of content do you want to see from me?
- How often do you use [product name]?
- When you use [product name], do you also [action related to your product]?
- Which video should I release next?
- How many [plural version of product name] do you own?
Why Instagram Story polls are for good for engagement
Every Instagram story poll offers a fun and interactive way to engage with creators.
Ever notice how many social media posts will have millions of views, thousands of likes but not as many comments?
This is because it’s far easier to like a post than it is to share your thoughts on it.
A poll on Instagram is the same way.
Instead of having to come up with a response and type out that response, all your viewer has to do is tap a poll option.
This makes it much easier for silent social media users, called “lurkers,” to participate.
It’s best to suit your audience’s preferences in different ways when you can. Instagram story polls allow you to do just that.
In order to further boost engagement, choose the questions you ask and the options you offer carefully.
Unfortunately, some internet users click a poll option just so they can see the results. Others just want to interact with the poll and can’t be bothered to give a serious answer.
So, they’ll select any option just so they can see the results.
It may be a good idea to choose a default option for every poll you create because of this.
For yes-or-no questions, add a third “I Don’t Know” or “IDK” option. This way, users who truly don’t know which response to give but still want to see the results have a way to interact with the poll that doesn’t skew the results.
You can also add a “meme” option to give silly users a default option to choose when they don’t want to give a serious option.
Choose a random word that’s not related to your niche, such as “mochi,” “lizard” or “opal,” and add it as an option to every poll you create.
This can be pretty tricky to do on Instagram since you’re limited to four options per poll, but it’s a simple way to prevent trolls and misfits from skewing your results with non-serious votes.
Use Instagram polls sparingly
The best way to approach Instagram poll stickers is to use them sparingly in your stories. Otherwise, you run the risk of being seen as a quiz creator.
While there’s nothing wrong with this type of content being your bread and butter, it’s probably not the type of content you’re hoping to be known for in your niche.
You want to be the go-to creator for your niche, the page your target market thinks of when they need new information or entertainment.
If you create too many polls, your audience may come to expect them, causing all other content you create to be ignored.
So, diversify your social media calendar to avoid putting yourself into a box.
How to turn Instagram polls into ideas
Whether you’re using the official Polls sticker, the Questions sticker or the emoji reaction sticker, you can easily use the feedback you receive to come up with new ideas for your business.
These could be product ideas, ideas for new videos or even ideas on how to approach your entire marketing strategy.
Some polls are just for fun. Others can be useful tools that engage your audience while also allowing you to collect key data.
Here are a few data points you can collect using Instagram poll stickers:
- Product preferences, including product type and brand
- Audience habits, such as whether or not they remove their hooks after returning from a fishing trip, how often they clean their sewing machines, etc.
- Audience demographics
- Audience skill level or familiarity in your niche
Try to come up with poll ideas that can uncover these data points.
Final thoughts
Now, you know how to start a poll and you’ve some creative ideas to get you started.
Polls are a great way to encourage your audience to engage with you and they can be used for basic research purposes. For example, you could use them to refine product ideas and see how your audience will react.
Just remember that this is just one part of the puzzle.
A successful instagram strategy will require a diverse range of content types and you’ll need to leverage as many of Instagram’s features as you can.
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