LinkedIn product

Tapping into the Power of Your Professional Network with Polls

Your professional network can be a great asset when it comes to gleaning insights or getting a second opinion. Whether you’re debating which business tool you should invest in, curious about which LinkedIn Learning course professionals in your field find useful, or deciding which interview question to ask a prospective team member, getting input from your network can give you the confidence to pull the trigger or pursue another direction. 

That’s why we are introducing a quick, easy and fully-virtual way to solicit feedback from your network via our new polls feature. Asking your network for feedback—and providing it to others in return—is a great way to get relevant and informed input, while also sparking new conversations and discussions with your trusted connections. 

Create a lightweight poll in 30 seconds or less

With polls, you can easily tap into the collective knowledge of your network by creating a lightweight poll in less than 30 seconds. 

Here’s how: 

  • Start a new post and click the “Create a Poll” option in the chooser menu 

  • Type your question, enter up to four answer options, and select the poll’s duration—between 24 hours and up to two weeks

  • Write up a post to go along with your poll—you can include hashtags to help your poll get more attention

  • Push the poll live to either your connections, specific Groups you're in, or to anyone across the LinkedIn network. By targeting specific Groups with your poll, you can get even more relevant insights - for example, if you are in a Group for marketers, you could ask about the group member’s favorite tool for email marketing management.  

Need inspiration for what to ask? We tested Polls internally, and here are a few examples of what our employees asked: 

Review poll results and continue the conversation

While your poll is collecting insights from your network, you can easily keep an eye on the activity in real-time, such as how many votes have been cast thus far, results for each option, and how much time is left for voting. Only you, the poll creator, can also see who voted and what they cast their vote for. 

Once the poll closes, you can see all the pertinent information in one place: the winning option, the percentage of votes for each option and the total vote count. Curious why someone voted in a certain way? Message them from directly within the poll. It’s a great way to get deeper insights and to stay in touch with your connections.

Polls will be gradually rolling out globally on mobile and desktop over the next few weeks. We encourage you to give it a try and share your experience with us! 

Co Authors: Howie Fung and Clarisse Siu