Did you ever use the LInkedIn Polls feature? It's another tool you can use to poll your network on any question that you deem relevant.
LinkedIn Polls haven't exactly taken center stage in my LinkedIn homefeed since 2007. It was one of the first applications but it has gradually lost it's prominence. The problem with Polls in my experience was that they were fairly stagnant and hidden away on your profile, you'd be lucky to get more than ten responses.
LinkedIn Polls revamp
Therefore I am glad to report that the big L have revamped the interface and added more sharing buttons to it. The idea of the new Polls is that you create it at LinkedIn and then share it with your network there of course, but also across social media and any other online presence you have such as a blog or website. This is obviously another clever move by LinkedIn as non-users might just get sucked in to the shining path as it were.
Let's check out the application, make sure you are logged in to LinkedIn and click on the LinkedIn Polls application.
Ask your question
Just like the old Polls application, you enter your question in the free text field. Be sure to ask something that is relevant to your audience and network. Bear in mind that what you ask here is part of your reputation building or personal branding on Linkedin, the level of your question will showcase your expertise in your field.
Spread the word
This is the main upgrade in my opinion, whereas before you had to email your network and ask them to visit the page - you can now simply share you Poll across all major social media platforms. It's interesting to see that LinkedIn have included Facebook here, an obvious attempt at pulling people off the 'social network' to the 'professional network'.
Even more useful is perhaps the fact that you can embed your newly created poll on your blog, just embed the code and it will appear. This means LinkedIn have now created a reach beyond their network and could be creeping in to company websites over time which is an interesting development indeed.
Measure the results
Like with all social media and indeed marketing in general, you will want to measure the results of your poll very carefully. Apart from the results of the poll, you can see a few demographics as well such as age, seniority within a company (based on job title) and gender.
How do you create a great LinkedIn Poll?
Check out this presentation from GrowMotor, they recently did a big old poll and came up with some useful ideas on how to structure things.
Do you use LinkedIn Polls for marketing? Please share your best tips as well in the comments!