Announcing Targeted LinkedIn Polls
I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept “the wisdom of crowds”. Pretty cool stuff, right? Today, we’re launching a product that will allow you to leverage the wisdom of your professional network on LinkedIn.
Think of the possibilities:
- Could you make decisions faster if you could ask a question to 500 professionals who fit the profile for your target customers?
- What if you could test your marketing message on 250 small business owners in your region before launching your marketing campaign for the quarter?
- Could you refine your go-to-market strategy if you could understand how the point of view of technology professionals varies depending on company size?
The idea of allowing you to quickly and cost effectively gather input and insight from the right group of people, is what is behind the new targeted LinkedIn Polls product that we’re launching today. Built on our inApps platform, LinkedIn polls allows you to create a poll, target it to a specific professional audience, and then analyze the results of your poll.
Some of the key features include:
- See how poll results vary by looking at demographics. We know that all professionals don’t think alike, and that’s why we break down poll responses based on the demographics of respondents to show you how variables such as company size, job title, job function, age or gender change the way people respond to your question.
- The ability to create a poll and send it to one of two groups: (1) send it to a target group of professionals ($50 minimum) or (2) poll your network (for free)
- My Polls page allows you to easily find the results pages from polls you’ve answered in the past. This is where we archive all polls you’ve answered. If you want to see updated results from a poll you took a few days ago this is the place to go to.
We hope LinkedIn Polls helps you get the insights you need, from the right people, faster.
Please send ideas, feedback, and suggestions to polls@linkedin.com or leave a comment on this post.
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Guillaume Foutry January 15th, 2009
Great tool. Can we export the data?? How many free polls are we allowed to make??
Ryan Adams January 16th, 2009
I second Guillaume Foutry’s questions.
I think this will be an excellent tool, and I’d pay to get it to 2nd degree connections.
Best,
Ryan
http://www.vivussoftware.com – Company
http://www.jobsighter.com – LinkedIn Blog
anonymous January 17th, 2009
What we measure is not the wisdom of crowds, but the wisdom of how me measure and what we learn.
If I would conducting a study (and studied social psychology and research methods) or creating an interesting survey I would not use a LinkedIn poll for these reasons:
1. You can not delete an answer to a poll so a record of your answer is stored which is not anonymous and is unethical.
2. Results by gender may be misinterpreted and for many other reasons should not be explicit for every poll taken.
3. 1 out of 5? What about inbetween and between 1 out of 5?
Read an intro book on psychology and be aware of the consequences of using gender as a discriminating measure.
Polls are ‘probably’ a very good and beneficial function to a social network stratified and connected by professional interest.
I love LinkedIn and appreciate how much work and wonder empowers and benefits my connection to the web.
[anonymous]
Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Jan 21, 2009 January 21st, 2009
[...] LinkedIn launches polls In a way to better understand the community, LinkedIn’s polling feature will help brands and others understand what’s top of mind for it’s [...]
Erik Jonker January 21st, 2009
It would also be interesting if you could limit a poll to a Linkedin Group, has this been intentionally left out ?
Heather Hollick January 23rd, 2009
I would like to poll specific groups of which I am a member. This would add considerable functionality to groups.
Pete Shrader January 26th, 2009
How do I get to the Polls page from the Home page?
Mario Sundar January 26th, 2009
@Pete,
The easiest way to reach the Polls page is the link on the Applications sidebar.
Mario from LinkedIn
Mark February 4th, 2009
Any timeframe on when we will be able to poll UK professionals?
Mario Sundar February 5th, 2009
@Mark,
It’s on the cards. Please stay tuned to the blog for more.
Mario from LinkedIn
Fred February 8th, 2009
how do LinkedIn make sure the target customers will participate in the polls?
Jason Lewis February 19th, 2009
I was hoping for a way to poll members of my LinkedIn group. Will group polling be available in the future?
dirkfrey March 23rd, 2009
The functionality to poll your group doesn’t exist but I have forwarded your comment on to the appropriate product manager for consideration in future releases.
Michael Quale April 16th, 2009
very nice tool. I cannot wait to put this to use.
Matthijs April 29th, 2009
Is there a way I can see who responded to my poll and what answer he or she gave?
Nicole May 7th, 2009
I purchased a poll yesterday and I was under the impression that I would be sent the names of the contacts that responded to my poll. For me that was the value that I saw in polling potential customers in my market. If you cannot see the actual individual responses then you should make that clear to people before you purchase a linkedin poll.
I sent an email yesterday to the helpdesk asking for more details but I haven’t gotten a response yet.
Dirk Frey May 8th, 2009
@Nicole – I’m sorry that you were given that impression. LinkedIn will never provide the poll owner a contact list of those respondents. Targeted Ads allow you to target specific members based on demographics like company size, job function, industry, seniority, gender, age and geography. The information we provide back is compiled using that data but the privacy of the respondents will always be respected.
Nicolai June 24th, 2009
@ dirkfrey, is there any news on the front of group polling? I’m also very curious…is there going to be a difference in group polling in the US and Europe? also any news on pricing of polling in Europe? Thanks!
Dirk Frey June 30th, 2009
@Nicolai – Unfortunatly I have no new information I can share on this. It is a product they are still exploring.
Dan Hegler July 14th, 2009
Any ability to poll groups yet? That would be an incredibly useful tool.
Davina Blake-Lawson July 22nd, 2009
Is it possible to have multiple questions in one poll, or is it just to get results on one question?
Dirk Frey July 22nd, 2009
@Davina – The Polls feature allows you to ask one question with up to 5 multiple choices.
Matt July 31st, 2009
Can I target groups? Do they count as my 1st degree connections?
Dirk Frey August 6th, 2009
@Matt- Groups are not considered part of your 1st degree connections. They are however part of your network. At this time the feature does not allow you to target groups.
-Dirk
Daniel Truran August 20th, 2009
I join the previous comments – warmly – welcoming the polls option targeting specifically groups / subgroups.
Great tool in any case.
Bo Brandt October 10th, 2009
Targeting groups and subgroups would be a very useful tool.
Herbjörn Wilhelmsen October 25th, 2009
I really want the group feature too. Polls for specific groups makes a whole lot of sense. And if you worry about targeting people that are not 1st degree connections then just let my first degree connections IN THE TARGETED GROUP see my poll. If I want to pay for it the target would then be all the members of a group….
Win-win? Linkedin does what I need and therefore I want to pay to get even more reach (combined with focus)?
Rob Colbourn October 27th, 2009
That’s a great suggestion Herbjorn – the ability to do this would immensely improve the usefulness of this facility! Add my vote to this too…
John Larkin November 19th, 2009
I think the masses have spoken. Let us poll the groups we manage. I use a Linkedin group to manage one of my professional association’s committees. This would be a great way to allow them to vote on committee business over the course of a period of time rather than four times a year at meetings. Linking the poll to a discussion thread about the item they’re voting on? Double score!