In the UK, 77% of people have an active Social Media account.

Connecting with prospects online has evolved. It used to be enough to just send a tweet, post a Facebook status and share a few photos with your Social Media visitors.

Now, creating content that connects is most important. Sharing content online has been the number one traffic driver to my website over the last twelve months. Whether this is through blogs, webinars or other pieces of content, it’s still content but… It wasn’t always this successful.

I made one major shift and that was to use on simple feature that allowed me to get to know my Social Media visitors.

This feature was first tested out with my 30k+ Twitter following, and the results were great. The feature in question is Polls.

Definition Of A Poll, And Why You Should Use Them

A poll, in Social Media terms, is where you pose a question to your audience, and give them a number of multiple choice answers and they choose one of these options and vote.

At the end of a poll, you then get a variety of answers from your Social Media visitors.

Since using Polls, I have really been able to understand my audience, and build trust. Being able to understand what your audience are looking for, and giving them this is a great way to build customer loyalty.

There are two different social networks which I use to run polls and want to share these two networks with you, and how I use them to get to know my Social Media visitors.

Facebook Polls

For me, Facebook Polls have been extremely important. As I have evolved as a business with Think Digital First, I have introduced more products, and I needed to create a place where my audience who have joined one of my courses could engage with each other, and myself to get the answers they need to help grow their business.

Inside of this Facebook Group is over 400 business owners who have engaged with me, and spent their money with me. I share continuous content inside of this group (as do all of the other members including my team).

To help me better understand what they want from me, I ran a poll. The questions was around the type of content they most enjoyed, and found the best to digest information.

See the below image for the poll. As you can see, I gave a variety of different options for the poll and even with seven options, there was one clear winner; Video.

This told me that video would be the best type of content for me to create moving forward. After running this poll, I have ran various PPC (pay per click) campaigns using videos, and have also found myself running more live streams, which then become video’s after the real-time viewing.

My engagement has increased because of doing this, as well as my conversion. This was a very specific question for a very niche selection of my audience. I chose to ONLY run this poll to those who know me, and have already purchased a product of mine. If you want to speak to MORE of your audience, take a look at Twitter Polls.

Twitter Polls

At the end of 2015, Twitter announced a brand new feature for all of their users.

Twitter have previously allowed users to ask questions and track their replies within their community through the use of hashtags or asking for “retweets” or “favourite” to cast a vote but now you can create your own poll straight from your newsfeed for a 24 hour period.

Don’t just run a poll on what to have for dinner, or who you think will win a football match. Get more specific about your business, and give your audience the power to decide on something that will impact them. This could be based on your next piece of content, your next product or even about their favourite place to engage with you.

Polls inside of Twitter, and Facebook are free to use, and one of the best and most powerful ways to really get to know your audience, build loyalty and increase trust. The more you turn to your audience for advice, and for their opinion, the more likely they are to not only become a customer, but also a brand advocate.

Have you always wondered how to maximise all of what Twitter has to offer for your business?

In my NEW and EXCLUSIVE 1 hour webinar, I will share with you how I have become a verified Twitter user, and amassed a following of over 32,000 business owners.

Twitter is one of the most influential social networks, and if building your online identity, and growing a business is important to you, Twitter must be one of the social networks you are using on a daily basis to engage with your target audience.

To understand whether this webinar is for YOU, I have three questions I would like you to ask yourself:

• Do you know how to use all of Twitter’s features?
• Are you happy with the engagement and traffic you are generating through Twitter?
• Do you know how to find your target customers on Twitter?

If you answered NO to any of the above questions, this will be one of the best Twitter learning opportunities you’ll have this year, and it’s 100% free, certified and live!

Here’s Why You Should Care:

• 71% of users say they use Twitter multiple times per day
• 90% of Twitter users say they plan to purchase from the small businesses they follow
• 84% of shoppers on Twitter use the platform to look for deals and product reviews
• Twitter users shop nearly twice as much as non-Twitter users

Click on the link below to access the recording!