Twitter Polls have been out and about for a couple months now, and while they are pretty awesome, they have some limitations you should take into consideration.
Pro #1: You can use polls on Twitter. Yay!
Being able to poll folks on Twitter is pretty cool in and of itself. You can ask people for their opinions on last night's game or what their goals are for next year:
My goals for 2016 include…
— Content a la mode (@contentalamode) December 28, 2015
Cool! Viewers see how much time is left to vote, how many people have voted, etc. Seems pretty cool. If you want to learn more about Twitter Polls, visit Buffer's handy guide on getting started with Twitter Polls here.
There's always a “but…”
Con #1: Twitter Polls only last 24 hours.
Yep. A whopping 24 hours. Now, you do get analytics and stats and such about your Twitter Polls, but the ability to vote on a pole is only active for 24 hours. So if you want to send the tweet out to your followers in an email to vote, you better hope they open their email soon.
Pro #2: Twitter Polls are a great way to get some engagement on topics surrounding your business.
You could have Twitter followers vote for their favorite camera brand or most used lens. Or perhaps you could ask followers about what you should name your new blog. Either way, It's a creative way to garner some engagement from your followers.
Con #2: Twitter Polls have a character and choice limit.
It's Twitter, so a limitation on the characters and choices shouldn't be a surprise, should it? If you use a 4-choice poll, your Twitter Poll choices can only have 20 characters each and your tweet can have a maximum of 116 characters. Check out this screenshot test of this theory:
Don't worry–we didn't tweet that out for a customer! Here's what the Twitter Poll ended up looking like:
#TwitterPoll: What #camera are you shooting with today? #photography
— Rockbrook Camera (@rockbrookcamera) December 28, 2015
But we're not really sure we want to consider this a “con” of Twitter Polls. It wouldn't be Twitter if we could write a novel, would it? But then again, it would be nice to be able to write a bit more content for each choice.
Pro #3: Twitter Polls spawn impromptu questions…and engagement.
Customer ask you an intriguing question? Put it out on a Twitter Poll and see what your followers think of it. Even though you are limited to 4 choices, your followers might tweet back something you might not have considered, like the Twitter Poll example from Rockbrook Camera before:
Con #3: We can't think of another one.
Instead of reaching for straws, we'll just pretend like there isn't a 3rd con to Twitter Polls.
Final thoughts.
We like Twitter Polls–don't get us wrong! They are growing on us as we write this blog post. The cool part about embedding the tweets on your blog posts like we did here is that viewers can see the results of the Twitter Polls long after they are completed–no broken links to worry about! But if you were looking for some amazing game changer in the the world of social media, don't get your expectations too high for Twitter Polls.
What do you think? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
