Instagram polls have been around for a while now, and the sticker has been largely unchanged. As a result, so has the way people use polls on Instagram stories.
A typical Instagram user would be following hundreds of accounts, and at any given point in time, a LOT of them would have Stories put up. You have to do your best to stand out from the crowd.
This way, your followers will be inclined to view your Stories more than the others. Following this, the Instagram algorithm will place your Stories before most other pages! That’s the goal, right? That’s exactly where you want to be with your Instagram Stories.
We’re going to discuss how you can keep your Stories fresh with Instagram poll games and other great ideas. Before that let’s talk about how to add a poll to Stories.
How to make a poll on Instagram Stories
Step 1: Add the image for your Insta Story
A swipe to the right on your Instagram scrolling feed will navigate you to the Stories tab. Here, you can choose to click an image or upload one that’s already on your image gallery.
The images from your image gallery can be accessed on the bottom-left of the Stories tab.
Step 2: Navigating to the Stickers menu and selecting the Poll sticker
After selecting your image, tap on the Stickers button, as shown below.
You’ll then see a colourful menu with diverse stickers. Locate the Poll sticker, and tap on it.
Side note: If you want to keep your content fresh, don’t forget to experiment with ALL of these overlays. They’re dynamic, and can be used in a lot fo contexts.
After this, all that’s left to do is to add your question and poll options!
Alternatively, you can leave the question blank on this sticker, and style your question with the Add Text option on your Story.
You’re done! You can play around with this glorious sticker now.
Fun Instagram story ideas with polls, and other great overlays
1. Tournaments and showdowns
If you’re a reviewer of things, you could consider having a mega, full-fledged tournament or comparison between products/services, right on your Instagram stories. The idea is to pit the considered products side-by-side and get audience opinions on which ones are superior.
One of the biggest showdowns of this kind was arranged by MKBHD, probably the best-known tech reviewer on the Internet today. He called it the Blind Smartphone Camera Test, and this was conducted in 4 distinct rounds. The first round consisted of 16 phones, and two of them were pitted next to each other in each of the eight Stories. Identical images were clicked with each, along with a poll through which viewers could indicate which ones they preferred.
After 4 total elimination rounds, a winner was decided. This showdown went viral amongst the global tech community, and just shows the potential Instagram Stories have, in terms of generating excitement and buzz.
If you’re planning a showdown like this one, make sure to keep a time interval between rounds to build up anticipation, and to allow for any discussions that have to be taken up. A well-executed set of Stories can give your account a lot of views and attention.
And remember, what made this possible was a humble Instagram Polls sticker.
2. The classic Instagram poll quiz
Okay, so poll quizzes on Instagram Stories are mainstream now, but this doesn’t make them any less fun! Quizzes are Instagram poll games that everyone loves, regardless of whether it’s for a quick brain exercise, or to find out if they’re smarter and sharper than others.
Of course, getting an answer right on a poll quiz is followed by a very real sense of victory, and this could very well lead to positive associations with your brand.
There are a couple of ways of carrying out quizzes on Insta stories. You can either use the poll sticker to receive answers (and then reveal them on the next slide) or use the dedicated Quizzes sticker shown below.
3. Polls to keep your viewers in suspense
If there are exciting things going on with your brand, don’t be in a rush to reveal them! Building anticipation and suspense works great, and it gets people talking. Instagram Stories is a great platform to generate. A good, attention-grabbing hook won’t fail you, and will only bring more people to your profile.
For example, if you’re collabing with someone you think your audience would be excited about, tease the collab on your Insta Story, and put up a poll asking your audience to guess the brand/influencer you’re collaborating with! You can also do this with new products, events and general updates to get people talking.
Instagram also has a great sticker for building suspense and anticipation. It’s called the countdown sticker, and it’s been there for a while now. If you’ve been actively viewing Instagram Stories in the past couple of years, your would have seen profiles posting Stories counting down to the time of their friends’ birthdays! The sticker can be used for brands as well, here’s an example:
Isn’t this cool? What’s great is that when your followers view Stories with countdown stickers they’ll have an option to set a reminder for the time you’re counting down to! This is one of the niftiest features on Instagram Stories if you use it right!
P.S: If you’re looking to maximise your reach before a product launch, hashtags are your best weapon. Read this blog to find out how!
4. Weekly ‘this-or-thats’ make for great Instagram poll games
As far as Instagram poll games go, this and that ones are fairly common. However, this doesn’t take away from the fact that they are super engaging. As long as they contain topics that your audience cares about, you can expect more than a decent interaction on these Stories.
Sometimes, even when users don’t have an opinion or an answer to your poll, they will choose an option just out of the curiosity to know what the majority of people are in favour of.
One way of doing this is by tying it to an event or an occasion. For example, in National Read A Book Day, 9GAG had a series of Stories with polls about whether people preferred the movie version or the book version of a particular Story.
It’s little touches like this that make 9GAG one of the most popular memes/entertainment pages on the platform; they just never fail to keep their audience engaged.
Alternatively, you can also use the ‘this-or-that’ format in the context of your own products, or your products pitted against your competitors. This acts as informal market research, and the information gained from Stories this way can be surprisingly insightful.
5. Use the Instagram Stories Question sticker for unstructured answers!
In fact, take it a step ahead and post some answers on your subsequent stories! This will motivate people to participate and answer your question.
What should these questions be about? Anything, really.
For instance, you can ask your followers about their thoughts on your industry, your brand vs competing brands, recommendations for future products etc. The fact that you are considering the opinions of your followers will make them feel valued and will increase their admiration of your brand. At the same time, you are gaining valuable insights into your target market!
Alternatively, you can post a question without sticking to the context of your industry. Simply putting up a “What’s on your mind? Vent it out below!” can garner an amazing response. Some people just need an outlet for their emotions, and doing this through your brand can generate very positive associations.
6. Host a mini-giveaway on your Insta stories!
Giveaways are a great way to provide an incentive to your followers to interact with your profile. While you can run a full-fledged campaign and give away expensive, valuable assets, you can also host a mini-giveaway on your Stories! Basically, the idea should be to give away items (that are smaller in value) to the first few people, or even to everybody that gets the poll answer correct. An example of this for a coffee marketer is shown below.
Doing Stories this way can increase engagement, while also encouraging and incentivizing purchases of your products! If you run a giveaway like this one weekly, it can also prompt more people to keep an eye on your Insta, thus increasing your follower count!
Apart from directly increasing engagement, some contests and giveaways can also expose your brand to a wider set of Instagram users. When you ask for submissions from your followers tagging you, their follower base will see their content as well and will get an opportunity to hear/learn about your brand. A well-thought-out giveaway has a great potential of going viral, so make sure you design and ideate on these Instagram poll games thoughtfully!
7. Reveal a piece of big news!
If you have big news to share about your brand, your followers should be able to absorb it fully. For this to happen, just presenting information in a written/spoken style may not be your best alternative. Most people would passively absorb information if it is delivered like this.
Instead, make it interactive! For example, here’s a Story design we had put up on the Predis.ai Instagram handle, about an update to the app.
This was a very simple idea, but a lot of actions were taken on this Story, and there was a lot of curiosity generated. Subsequently, after the update was rolled out, we uploaded a few Stories on what exactly the update was, and how many respondents answered correctly! Furthermore, some traffic was diverted to Predis.ai when it was an absolute crunch moment for the app.
Generate a buzz in this way before delivering information, so more people would actually be willing to absorb it.
Essentially, if you haven’t started using Instagram’s brilliant stickers and overlays, you should seriously consider doing so.
Your ideas will only build on each other as you experiment with these, and you’ll find newer, fresher ways to keep using them. For other ways of increasing your Instagram engagement rate, check out this blog! If there are any Instagram poll games that have clicked with your audience, let us know!
Another thing you have to keep in mind is that Instagram Stories shouldn’t be used too extensively or too sparingly. If you only post one Story randomly every few days, it will look awkward and come off as poorly planned. It also may not show up in the first few Stories for many people, and they may have to swipe for a while to see your content. This is not ideal, and it can seriously affect your Story impressions and engagement.
On the other hand, if you post too many Stories in a single day, you’re giving your followers far too much to digest at once. They may even get bored in the midst of tapping through your Stories and swipe to the next account.
Thus, it is important to find a good balance between the two. Generally, a few Stories daily works best, but you should experiment before settling on an ideal number. What resonates most with your followers is what will work best for you.
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