How to Use Polls to Measure Your Clients’ Needs

Whether you create a poll through advertising or as part of your organic social media strategy, here are seven reasons to use them.

1. Increased Engagement. Increased social media engagement = higher social media clout. More social media clout = increased online brand visibility.
2. Generate Leads. Attaching a lead generation form to share poll results or providing an offer helps make the interaction feel more natural for the audience while giving you lead data.
3. Cost-Effective. Compared to focus groups, online polls are less expensive.
4. Administrative Ease. You can schedule polls in your organic social media plan and distribute them with ease.
5. Audience Reach and Sample Size. Polls are unrestricted by geography, demographics, or interests. When paying to post them, you have control over who will see the poll.
6. Data Analytics. Social media tools provide a variety of analytics about those who completed the request, including household income, geography, age, gender, and more. Though some of this data may be suppressed due to the Apple iOS 14.5 update, you can still collect quite a bit of information.
7. Less Intrusive. Users are accustomed to taking a social media poll on just about any platform.

What platforms support social polling?

Each of the major social media platforms allows polling, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. To maximize its effectiveness, be sure to launch the poll from your firm’s page rather than a personal profile.

Budget

You can create a poll on your company page without spending a dime. However, organic polls only go to your existing followers, unless shared by your followers to a larger audience. If it’s shared, you have no idea who it’s going to.

Paying for a poll post will give you control over the audience, increase your sample size, and provide information about a target market.

Poll Question Inspiration

You have to be realistic with your poll questions to make sure the data collected helps your firm. Here are some examples that could lead to content development.

• How do you prefer to get information? (a) podcast / (b) webinar / (c) reading. The top answers inform how your content is consumed.
• If you could live outside the U.S. while retaining your citizenship, where would you live? (a) Europe (b) Asia (c) Canada (d) South America, etc. Answers would lead to a series on international tax, FBAR, and ex-pat taxes.
• What kind of movies do you like to watch? (a) drama (b) sci-fi (c) action (d) romance, etc. This data informs how you create scenarios in content examples. Each genre lends itself to certain types of content headlines. Future storylines could then be based on the data.
• What are you most worried about when it comes to retiring? (a) no social security benefit (b) I won’t have enough money (c) I’ll never be able to retire (d) Retirement, what’s that? Answers to this question can lead to a series of financial planning, estates, trusts, and more.
• Have you considered moving out of state? (a) yes (b) no. This data lends itself to cross-border tax topics, income tax returns, property tax issues, etc.
• If we shared a monthly newsletter with cash flow tips, money management, audit tips, payroll guidance, etc., would you want to receive it? (a) yes (b) no. Answers help you determine if you should spend time, money, effort on creating a monthly newsletter.
• What is your top business pain point? (a) cash flow (b) succession planning (c) tax management (d) payroll oversight (e) time management, (f) audit prep, etc. Each answer lends itself to a series of business pain points and how your firm can solve them.
• Did you hear, [insert celebrity name] didn’t have a Will for [his/her] estate? Do you have a Will? (a) yes (b) no. Based on responses, you could create a series of estate planning tips.

If you want to know more about your audience, consider demographic questions, such as “What was your favorite television show growing up?” (a) Flipper (b) Beverly Hills 90210 (c) Friends (d) Dawson’s Creek (e) Nah to TV give me video games.

Create questions that help you gauge the age of those responding. Then create content addressing life issues during those ages. For example, Flipper would align with boomers. Beverly Hills 90210 would signify Gen X. Friends would indicate a millennial. The video game answer would align with Generation Z.

Make the Most of Your Polls

Here are four tips to help boost your poll’s effectiveness.

1. Keep it interesting and relevant. Ensure that your audience cares enough about the topic to respond.
2. Post the poll during peak visitation/traffic times and days. Find the time from your social media platform analytics.
3. Avoid too many polls. Posting once a month might suffice.
4. Respond. Take the time to interact with poll takers by responding to questions or following up with links to relevant content.

Now that you have some poll ideas, what will you ask your audience?

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Becky Livingston is the Owner and CEO of Penheel Marketing, a NJ-based firm specializing in social media and digital marketing for CPAs and small business owners. With over 25 years of marketing and tech experience, she is the author of “SEO for CPAs – The Accountant’s SEO Handbook” and the “The Accountant’s Social Media Handbook.” In addition to being a practitioner, she is a dog lover, an active Association for Accounting Marketing’s (AAM) committee member, an adjunct professor, and a speaker/trainer. Learn more about Becky and her firm at https://Penheel.com.