Tips on creating engaging and informative polls

1. Keep it simple and clear: Use concise language and make sure your options are easy to understand.

2. Make it relevant: Ensure your poll is related to your product, service, or industry to gather meaningful insights.

3. Be creative: Use images, GIFs, or videos to make your poll more visually appealing and engaging.

4. Time it right: Post your poll during peak engagement hours to maximise participation.

5. Analyse your audience: Use Instagram Insights (/content-hub/how-to-leverage-instagram-insights-for-better-engagement-and-growth) to understand your audience’s demographics and interests, and tailor your polls accordingly.

Examples of successful market research polls

1. Product preferences: Ask your audience to choose between two product features, designs or flavours.

2. Content ideas: Gauge interest in potential content topics or formats for your /instagram/content-creation.

3. Brand perception: Assess how your audience perceives your brand by asking them to choose between two adjectives, such as "innovative" or "traditional".

4. Pricing: Determine the optimal price point for a product or service by asking your audience to choose between two price ranges.

Instagram questions are another feature available within Instagram Stories, allowing users to ask open-ended questions to their followers. To create a question, users can add a "question" sticker to their Story and customise the text. Followers can respond to the question by typing their answer in the provided text box, and the user who asked the question can view the responses privately or share them publicly on their Story.

Advantages of using Instagram questions for market research

1. Gather qualitative data: Open-ended questions can provide deeper insights and more detailed feedback than polls.

2. Encourage engagement: Questions allow your audience to share their thoughts and opinions, fostering a sense of connection and involvement with your brand.

3. Discover new ideas: Questions can help uncover new product ideas, content topics, or marketing strategies that you might not have considered.

4. Collect testimonials: Positive responses can be used as testimonials for your reviews page (like we did) or in your marketing materials.

Guidelines for crafting insightful questions

1. Be specific and clear: Ensure that your questions are easy to understand and focused on a particular topic or aspect of your business.

2. Encourage elaboration: Phrase your questions in a way that motivates your audience to provide more detailed and thoughtful answers.

3. Make it relevant: Similar to polls, ensure your questions are related to your product, service, or industry to gather valuable insights.

4. Limit the number of questions: Avoid overwhelming your audience with too many questions at once. Focus on one or two key questions per Story.

5. Use follow-up questions: If a response sparks further curiosity, don't hesitate to ask a follow-up question to gather more insights.

Examples of successful market research questions

1. Feedback on experience: Ask your audience about their experience with your product, service, or /instagram/support-growth plan.

2. Content suggestions: Request ideas for future blog posts, Instagram captions, or other /content-hub materials.

3. Improvement ideas: Encourage your followers to share suggestions on how your business can improve or enhance its offerings.

4. Unmet needs: Discover potential gaps in the market by asking your audience about their unmet needs or desires related to your industry.

How to analyse responses for market insights

1. Look for patterns and trends: Identify common themes, preferences, or ideas among the responses you receive.

2. Consider demographics: Use Instagram Insights to understand the demographics of your respondents and tailor your analysis accordingly.

3. Quantify qualitative data: Convert open-ended responses into quantifiable data by categorising and counting similar answers or themes.

Turning insights into actionable strategies

1. Prioritise findings: Focus on the most significant insights that can have the greatest impact on your business strategy or performance.

2. Test and iterate: Use the insights gathered from your polls and questions to inform new initiatives, content, or /instagram/automatic-growth strategies, and monitor their performance.

3. Share your findings: Communicate your learnings with your team and incorporate them into your overall marketing strategy or establishing your brand voice.