Way back in the day, clever Brands tried to conduct Twitter polls by saying “retweet for the first choice and favorite (now like) for the second choice.” This was obviously very prone to bias. The first choice’s fans will spread the poll, so virality favors the first option. But it was also the best choice available, other than linking to an external poll site (which means a much lower interaction rate).

Then Twitter introduced native polls. Now you can post a question with up to four answers. It even makes a nice bar chart of the results. Twitter interactions are not a polling mechanism, so why are you using them?!

The answer lies in the word “interaction”. Social media interactions are a way for Brands to measure the success of their social media efforts. Conducting polls via interactions instead of the native polling mechanism are a cheap way to drive up interactions. It’s a good indication that you’re not interested in the answers. People who want actual answers can use polls.

This concludes today’s episode of “Old man yells at cloud”.