LinkedIn polls have the potential to reach 3 to 5 times more people than regular posts. However, what some people use to create meaningless engagement, you can utilise to your business’s advantage. That’s the difference between your garden variety poll and a loaded poll. There are many reasons to use polls on Linkedin but here’s why you should specifically be using loaded polls.
Direct Hit to Your Prospects’ Pain
At one time, everyone and their boss was using polls on LinkedIn. Usually, they are used in place of content with actual substance. A fun poll like ‘do you prefer dogs or cats’ is fine every once in a while and it can even be a way to start a conversation with other users on LinkedIn. However, knowing if someone prefers cats or dogs isn’t going to tell you if they are in need of your products or services. To find that out, you will have to ask them directly and no one is going to respond to a cold sales pitch.
A loaded poll will do the hard work for you without putting off potential prospects and help to identify two key things. One, that the people who answer are in need of your service and two, the specific pain your service can solve. From here, you are much better equipped to begin a conversation with these prospects.
Magnet for Engagement
Polls are the easiest type of content for people to engage with. All they have to do is click or tap one of the answers. If they leave a like and/or comment then that’s a bonus but it’s not necessary for loaded polls to be worth it. Truthfully, the less effort it takes for someone to engage with a post, the more likely they are to do it. The only time this changes is when a post really resonates with them. Well, here’s the good news – loaded polls are easy to engage with AND they specifically refer to a problem a user may be facing.
As more people vote on your poll, the more people LinkedIn will push the post out to. So, on top of creating engagement on the loaded poll itself, your profile is gaining more visibility. There is also the option to have one of the four answers of your loaded poll be ‘other’ and leave people the option to comment an answer that is not available.
Every Vote is a Lead
Loaded polls are extremely useful content tools because, usually, people will not answer them unless they are looking for a solution. While not every single person who votes guarantees a closed deal, they do create a pool from which you can generate leads. When you don’t have a lot of time for prospecting on LinkedIn, loaded polls are a great way to make up for this. Since polls can be run for up to a week, that’s seven days where you will passively be collecting potential leads.
Basically, you have nothing to lose from throwing a loaded poll into your content at least once a month. Give it a try and see how it transforms your LinkedIn experience.