Let’s continue with part 3 of Build a Facebook community blog posts. One idea to learn more about your fans is to ask questions by using a poll. In turn, you will get to know how to help your fans better.

What can you ask about?

Almost anything, within reason Here are some ideas:

• What kind of ice-cream do you like best?
• How much do you think ebooks should cost?
• What is your top question about social media?
• If you haven’t started a business blog, what kept you from doing it?
• How do you choose your designer?

What answers are you expecting?

If you are interested to see votes on particular ideas that you have, get them written down so you can add them as your poll options. For example, for the ice-cream question you could have: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. Be prepared with at least 3 answers to add to your poll.

Create your poll

Go to your Facebook business page and start your update by clicking Event, Milestone +, Question.

Enter your question and add options

In the Update area, enter your question. Click Add option and enter your top 3 answers. Make sure that the poll is set to Public so anyone can vote. Then click Post to share the poll on your page.

Tips for successful polls

I’m still learning to create successful polls, but here are some tips that I’ve gathered so far:

• Keep the answers to 3. While you can add more, the rest of them are hidden from the main view. I noticed that few people, if any,will actually see and vote.
• Experiment with pinning to top and featuring the poll update to give more exposure.
• Start answers with “I …”, it appears to be more direct and it encourages people to click.
• Polls cannot be shared by your fans and comments cannot be added to them. I actually asked our fans to do it and noticed that it’s not possible
• Remind people about the poll that you have up by posting an update from time to time on Facebook or other social media channels that you are active on.
• Ask people directly to vote, either when they join your page or after. Most of them would be happy to.

Your turn!

What are your tips for creating successful Facebook polls? Please share by leaving a comment.