Polling is an established, scientific way of taking the pulse of a population, no matter how you define it. Or it seems, how you ask them questions.
Creating a poll and publishing it on LinkedIn is the newest service they offer, being rolled out to everyone over time. Free.
Which means everyone will want to poll about something as soon as they get access to it. The crescendo of rampant polling will occur on its own bell curve, and after some time has elapsed, only some people will (hopefully) use polls as a valid and effective measure of connections’ sentiments.
I don’t have polls yet on my Home page. I see others do. And they can’t help themselves but to create polls that ask questions that really don’t answer any important need.
Like this poll I just saw (and I am paraphrasing here): Is your LinkedIn connection group too hot, too cold, or just right? Or I don’t know.” Goldilocksianly, the poll taker, likes playing around with her new toy. (Yeah, I know that’s not a real word!)
I don’t feel left out.
I did when “native video” came out and once it was offered to me, I jumped on the bandwagon. Eventually very few native videos appeared on LinkedIn as the craze died out (including mine). “Ho hum,” we all sighed, “another native video? I’ll pass. Next?”
Then came LinkedIn Live. It’s currently making the rounds, still effective when used the right way. Can I bear another guest advising me how to operate my business in a pandemic on a LinkedIn Live video?
So back to LinkedIn polls. Right now, since I don’t have it, I really don’t miss it.
But I’ll have it soon. Even then, I’ll continue to ask open ended-questions at the end of my posts and seek responses in words from expressive professionals that tells me a lot more than replies to 3 multiple choice answers. Some teasers I use include:
- “What do you think?”
- “How has this made your work more meaningful?”
- “Why is this important to your work?”
- “Why do you do what you do?” (you knew that was coming!)
So for now I’ll maintain my distance. I’ll not touch LinkedIn polls with a social-media-acceptable-10-foot-pole, unless I have something important to ask.
And on LinkedIn, that’s called professionalism.
