How to Do a Poll on Instagram Stories: The Only Guide You Need to Read

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Being used by over a billion people, Instagram is one of the most powerful social media platforms of the present time. The Stories feature of Instagram might be added a few years back, but it is already accessed by over 500 million active users. If you explore the Instagram Stories feature, then you will realize it offers different ways to interact with our audience, like polls and questions. In this post, I’m going to let you know how to do a poll on Instagram and will also share some interesting ideas to post poll questions for Instagram. Let’s get it started!

• Part 1: What is an Instagram Poll?
• Part 2: Why are Instagram Polls Important?
• Part 3: How to Create an Instagram Story Poll
• Part 4: Creative Instagram Poll Questions and Ideas
• Part 5: Explore More Ways to Use Instagram Polls

What is an Instagram Poll?

It is a newly-added feature in Instagram Stories that lets us host a poll on our profile (for at most 24 hours). All you need to do is add the Poll feature and enter the provided options. As of now, it only supports two options (like yes or no). Once the poll is posted on your story, your audience can select either of the options. You will get to know the results (who voted for which option) and can even share it with your audience as a story later on.

Why is Instagram Polls Important?

It doesn’t matter if you are managing your own or a brand’s profile, Instagram Polls can help you in more ways than you can think of. Here are some of the major benefits of the Instagram Poll feature.

• It lets us directly interact with our audience without any trouble.
• You can get to know the opinion of your audience about any topic immediately.
• It will also help in the development of a product as you can get instant feedback from its users.
• The Instagram Poll feature can also be used to educate others and increase your engagement rate.
• You can also use this feature to redirect your audience to your website and drive traffic.
• It can be used as an ideal funnel marketing tactic and you can even sponsor the poll story to gain more traction.

How to Create an Instagram Story Poll: A Step by Step Approach

Now when you know how important Instagram polls can be, let’s quickly learn how to do a poll on Instagram. To post Instagram poll questions, you simply need an active Instagram account. You can post an Instagram poll for your entire audience to see, set selective audience, or even DM it to someone. To learn how to do a poll on Instagram, just follow these steps:

1. Create your Instagram Story

At first, you can simply launch Instagram on your phone and go to the Story feature from the top-left corner. Once the dedicated interface of Instagram Story is launched, go to the “Create” section from its home to come up with an Instagram poll.

On the Create panel, simply swipe up to get options to insert questions, polls, countdowns, and so on. From here, tap on the “Poll” option, and its widget would be added on the screen that you can easily move around to position.

Now, you can just write a question that you wish to post on the poll and provide options for it. Instead of the default “Yes” and “No”, you can tap on these options and write any other choice.

2. Customize your Instagram Poll

As you can see, it is pretty easy to learn how to do a poll on Instagram. Once you have entered the text for the poll and the options, you can customize your story as well. For instance, you can tap on the top panel to get different backgrounds for your poll or can even post it on a picture.

From here, you can also swipe up to get different widgets that you can further add to your Instagram Story. You can insert music, countdown, location, mention someone, or even add interesting GIFs and stickers.

Apart from that, you can write anything or even draw a pattern on your story to customize it the way you like.

3. Post your Instagram Poll

That’s it! Once you are satisfied with the editing of your Instagram Poll story, tap on the “Done” button from the top. Now, you can preview how your poll would look like and can tap on the “Send to” button. This will let you post your story for the entire audience or selective people.

Later, you can tap on your story and just swipe up to see the results. Instagram will let you know who voted for which option in the poll and you can also share the results of the poll on another Instagram Story from here.

Creative Instagram Poll Questions and Ideas

By now, you would be able to understand how to do a poll on Instagram. Though, if you are running out of ideas to post, then here are some poll questions for Instagram that you can consider.

• Asking about a location

You can just post a picture of a place you have visited (like a famous monument or a city) and ask your audience if they have been to that place or not.

• Instagram Poll Questions on Food

Content related to food always performs well on Instagram. Therefore, you can post a photo of a dish that you have made and ask your audience whether they like it or not. You can even ask whether they would like you to share its recipe.

• This or That

You can find these poll questions for Instagram on almost every story these days. If you want, you can share a before and after look, pictures of two dresses, or anything else. Ask your audience which option they like the post.

• Can you relate?

These are some of the most interesting Instagram poll questions that you can post. Simply post a picture of a situation that you are in and ask your audience whether they can relate to it. You would be surprised to know how many other people can relate to the same situation.

• Love or Hate

This is similar to the “This or That” category, but the focus is on a single thing instead of two options. Just post a picture of a product and ask your audience whether they like it or not.

• Rating on a Scale

Apart from a simple yes/no poll, Instagram also lets us post a scale widget for a question. Your audience can just slide the scale (from zero to max) and let you know how much they like/dislike anything.

• Do you agree?

You can also see a lot of poll questions for Instagram in this pattern. Just post about something and ask your audience whether they agree to it or it. You can also ask them to DM you about their opinion if you want to engage with them.

Explore More Ways to Use Instagram Polls

When it comes to the use of Instagram Polls, the sky is the limit. Since the feature lets us engage with our audience so easily, almost every brand is using it as a marketing tool these days. If you want, you can also implement some of these suggestions to make the most of Instagram Polls.

1. Get Instant Feedback

If you know how to do a poll on Instagram efficiently, then you can instantly get the feedback of your audience. For instance, if your brand is working on a new line of products and you are not sure about something, then why not post it on Instagram. In this way, you can know the feedback of its end-users and would help in the product’s development as well.

2. Be Creative!

You might already know there are so many ways to do Instagram polls these days. Though, if you want your content to stand out, then try to be a bit creative. Instead of posting a simple yes/no poll, why not use emojis.

Let’s consider that you manage the Instagram profile of a beverage brand. Why not post a picture of a beach and ask your audience which beverage of yours they would enjoy the most. This would be quite an interesting post and will improve the engagement rate on your profile.

3. Redirect your audience

Product placement is one of the major things that you should consider doing in Instagram Polls. Though, apart from simply posting your products, you can ask your audience their opinion about it. Besides that, you can also include your website’s link or a DM option on the story. This will help you redirect your audience to your product page and can increase its sales as well.

4. Think Beyond Polls

While Instagram Polls are undoubtedly one of the best ways to engage with your audience, there are plenty of other features that you can try. You can consider posting a question as well to directly interact with your audience.

Not just that, you can also use a slider widget with a poll (or even without it). Instead of just selecting yes or no, this will let your audience slide their choice to a preferred value and will further spike their interest.

There you go! I’m sure that after reading this post, you would make the most of Instagram Polls. I have come up with a stepwise tutorial on how to do a poll on Instagram for beginners that anyone can implement. Also, you can get inspired by some Instagram poll questions and ideas that I have shared. Feel free to explore the Instagram Poll feature and interact with your audience on Instagram in the best possible way!

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox