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.
- Topics:
- New LinkedIn Features,
- Polls
Comments
Great tool. Can we export the data?? How many free polls are we allowed to make??
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
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]
It would also be interesting if you could limit a poll to a Linkedin Group, has this been intentionally left out ?
I would like to poll specific groups of which I am a member. This would add considerable functionality to groups.
How do I get to the Polls page from the Home page?
@Pete,
The easiest way to reach the Polls page is the link on the Applications sidebar.
Mario from LinkedIn
Any timeframe on when we will be able to poll UK professionals?
@Mark,
It’s on the cards. Please stay tuned to the blog for more.
Mario from LinkedIn
how do LinkedIn make sure the target customers will participate in the polls?
I was hoping for a way to poll members of my LinkedIn group. Will group polling be available in the future?
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.
very nice tool. I cannot wait to put this to use.
Is there a way I can see who responded to my poll and what answer he or she gave?
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.
@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.
@ 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!
@Nicolai – Unfortunatly I have no new information I can share on this. It is a product they are still exploring.
Any ability to poll groups yet? That would be an incredibly useful tool.
Is it possible to have multiple questions in one poll, or is it just to get results on one question?
@Davina – The Polls feature allows you to ask one question with up to 5 multiple choices.
Can I target groups? Do they count as my 1st degree connections?
@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
I join the previous comments – warmly – welcoming the polls option targeting specifically groups / subgroups.
Great tool in any case.
Targeting groups and subgroups would be a very useful tool.
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)?
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…
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!
I could not agree more. I would love to have the opportunity to poll my group members!
I agree with everyone! i think the main benefit of polls would be to use them with groups. It looks like these requests have been coming in for months – any updates?
Sorry to say the same as everyone else but I too would like to poll the groups that I manage, but cant
RP
A simple sollution for group polls: You can send the link of the poll to your connections. As a group manager you can send messages to everyone in the group, so just copy-paste.
My question is, how can you delete old polls you have created? You can only ‘end’, not delete.
Just to reinforce the other comments – a proper solution to allow the polling of groups/subgroups, and the display of poll results on the group/subgroup page, would be excellent.
Matt
I agree, polling groups would be a very powerful feature! no updates yet; we should at least ensure that the product manager got the message!
How could I delete old polls I have created? You can only ‘end’, not delete.
How could I update or delete a comment on old polls I have created? It’s important
I have the same question as Mohammad has: how to delete your old polls or change them? I am missing an ‘edit’ function and a way to really delete your own polls.
I see tremendous value in polling a particular group to which I belong. My groups support various facets of my professional life not all of which have the same level of interest in a poll that I might produce. (For example, I am a Learing professional who is also interested in technology for learning – I have a poll related to learning, I would like to get the responses from my Learning groups, but not my technology groups). Please consider adding this functionality in future. Thanks!
I have the same question as Mohammed and Christiaan – how do you delete old polls?
Hi All,
How can we delete the old polls???
Any idea?
Any word on when polls will be available within groups?
Is there a way to get the URL of the poll on LinkedIn to promote it and drive traffic from other channels?
I love these polls
Hi, thanks for the update.
Are the polls anonymous? I.e. if people vote on a poll I create, is their vote anonymous as a default?
Cheers
I am trying to set up a paid poll but do not see the option on my Create a Poll page. I have set one up but it is only going to my network. I need to create a wider poll asap. Please let me know why that option doesn’t appear available to me.
Thanks
One thing that’s great with polls is that they are great for getting someone to interact with your message. A well-worded poll will get you much more response and feedback than, say, a comment form.
And research has clearly shown that when someone has broken that initial barrier and interacted with you once, they are much more likely to do so again.
All the best
Gunnar
Dansko Clearance