look at the pic. I'm going to install a "sanitary tee" in that ci hub at the bottom for a toilet, but first I have to remove what's already in there. (a piece of ci pipe going up to that connector and secured in the hub with a donut) well, I've been told by people who know about these things, that INSERTING something into a ci hub with a "donut" (like what's in there now) can be DIFFICULT to say the least,so I imagine removing such a thing would be kind of tough. so,my question is:"how do I proceed to remove that ci pipe and donut?"
my liner in my oil Combustion chamber is about 12 years old and about 60-70 % complete, it has been torn up during clean up. should I leave it as is or replace it? Would waiting a few more years cause any serious damage?
I have a cast iron unit should I use wet or dry replacement?
thanks
Council votes to merely issue a warning, after city’s integrity commissioner had advised docking John Sprovieri 60 days’ pay for leaking internal emails to media.
Treat every piece of content—every tweet, every Facebook post, every CTA, every press outreach email—with the utmost care. There needs to be a bit of an internal struggle when we hit send or publish, if we don’t feel it, I don’t think it’ll be good enough.
This shouldn’t be confused with perfectionism, we want to push things out with consistency and without lingering.
This is about self-discipline to go through that struggle—even if it’s felt ever so slightly—every single time.
We don’t want to become churners – that churn out posts, or tweets, or what have you.
Every single piece of content is the only one that matters.
We give it all of our attention. We want to make it excellent, and we have a slight feeling of vulnerability and discomfort when we get it out because we think it might be too edgy or that it might fail. That is, however, what also creates the volatility of the piece, the opportunity for it to rise above everything else we’ve written so far and stand out and attract everyone’s attention.
Sometimes we think that just putting out a consistent number of things will just create some outliers that’ll help us win. Heck, I even believed this for a long time and advised people to just focus on quantity. I don’t think that’s true anymore. Yes, we need to output things at high quantity, but we need to treat every single piece of output as the one that’ll be a breakout hit.
Every single piece, we have to feel like “this is going to be the one.” Not all in the same way, but all in their own unique way of redefining excellence for their own area. And then, only some of them will be the true breakout hits and most of them won’t. But that’ll be the only way for us to truly create a space of excellence.
I think this is the approach we want to take and possibly we’ve fallen off it slightly reading some comments of how people feel about what we produce. It will require a lot of inward reflection and learning, and it won’t always feel great as we go through that struggle. I do think it’ll help us create something we’re truly proud of, where we can say: “Yes, writing this wasn’t easy, and I doubted myself a few times along the way. I then published it with slight discomfort, but I felt it was the right thing to do. Now seeing the results makes me happy.” Or maybe it’ll be a disappointment, but the self-discipline for being uncomfortable has to be there.
(This was originally shared as an Evernote note to the Buffer marketing team following the great discussion in a recent post on the blog.)
What sets winning businesses apart from the competition?
Automation is one edge. The Lenskold Group found that 63% of companies that are outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation.
What is an underrated way to drive more conversions?
Again, automation. companies that use marketing automation also see 53% higher conversion rates than non-users, according to the Aberdeen Group.
All of which raises the question: What kind of marketing automation are these winning businesses doing? And how might we be able to implement this for our business, too?
I’ve had a really fun time digging into this topic and researching how automation can help you with personalization, lead generation, relationship building, consistency and delighting your customers. I’d love to share what I found!
How to scale the things that don’t scale
At its best, marketing automation is software and tactics that allow companies to buy and sell like Amazon — that is, to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers. This type of marketing automation typically generates significant new revenue for companies, and provides an excellent return on the investment required. – Hubspot
The above quote from Hubspot sums up marketing automation perfectly.
The goal of automation is not to remove work entirely but to help you work more efficiently. With automation you can save time but still drive results for your business.
As amazing as automation is, it’s important to remember that people buy from and engage with other people. When used correctly, marketing automation frees up time from manual tasks (like moving data from one tool to another) and empowers us to be more connected to our audience and customers.
Many businesses (Buffer included) are built off the back of doing things that don’t scale. And automation can feel counter-intuitive to that notion.
However, with the rising popularity, and in many cases necessity, of automation, we like to look at it as a way to ‘scale the things that don’t scale.’
How winning businesses use automation (and how you can, too)
1. Automation as personalization
You can’t beat a nice, warm, personalized welcome from a company founder when you sign up to a new product and it’s something that Joel initially done at Buffer when we first launched:
In the early days, I was in touch on my personal email address with almost everyone who signed up for Buffer. With low volume, I could always respond immediately and people loved it.
If your company continues to grow though, you’ll reach a point where it becomes hard near-impossible to manually reach out to every single customer 1:1 upon sign up.
Thankfully, automated messages enable us to keep a nice, personal feel at scale. Here’s a copy of our current (automated) welcome email:
Personal conversations are extremely important in business and as Intercom explain over at their blog customer communications will increasingly need to have a personal feel to them:
We believe in the value of personal conversations between businesses and customers. We believe the future of customer communications will be much more like the chats you have with friends, and much less like tickets, applications and transactions that you formally submit to siloed departments.
Event triggered messages in action
Integrating super personalized messages into your acquisition and lifecycle marketing strategies is a great way for your business to automate this process and you can still keep the messages personal.
Automated messages can now be triggered based on a myriad of user actions and reach people at the precise moment they’re needed, making the messages feel a lot less robotic and much more intimate.
Think of this as a way for your business to say, “We’re listening and here’s what we can do to help right now.”
Here’s an example of an event trigged message in action:
In this case, someone has signed up to a new tool, but not yet shared it with a teammate. This message helps guide the users into sharing. It’s concise, timely and helps to new user to get the most out of the product.
The more you show a customer that you’re listening and care, the more likely they will be to become loyal and eventually a promoter of your business.
More so than ever, it’s important to think about how you can give your event triggered messages a personal feeling. When you automate your messaging like this, try to humanize your content and make your customer feel like it’s a 1:1 message.
Don’t automate everything
A key thing to remember is that you shouldn’t automate every single message you send. It can also be a great strategy to check in with your customers via a non-automated message from time to time.
At Buffer we still send out 1:1 messages to individual customers every day to see how they’re getting on and how we can improve the Buffer experience for them.
Top tips for automated messages
Use their name and/or business name in the message:“Hey Ash, how are things at Buffer?” sounds much more personal than: “Hi there, how are things with your company?”
Use friendly language: When you’re creating automated messages it can be easy to fall into using rigid ‘business-y’ speak, which can oftentimes sound robotic. When I create any automated messages, I like to use the kind of language I would use with colleagues. This approach feels more open and friendly.
Introduce yourself:“Hey there Steve, I’m Ash, content crafter at Buffer…” Introducing yourself in your first message with a customer or potential customer makes the message feel like the start of a conversation, rather than a one way broadcast.
Tools & Resources
Intercom:
Intercom helps your business to communicate with customers, personally, at scale — on your website, inside web and mobile apps, and by email.
With Intercom you can set up personalized, triggered messages based on actions without your product or website.
Consistency is a key to social media success. If you want to break through the noise you’ll need to maintain a consistant posting schedule across all of your social media channels.
Managing social media channels can be time consuming though. Especially if you’re active across a number of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Rather than popping in and out of each network every few hours when you’d like to post, automation makes means we can do this process all at once.
Simply gather all your content for the day (or week!) and load it into a social media automation tool — like Buffer — and your posts will be shared on your chosen date and time.
Social media automation in action
Social media automation tools like Buffer let you connect your different social network accounts so that you can create queues of content that get sent at the times you choose.
Tools like this are incredibly helpful for automating social sharing as you can schedule all your content and posts at once and let the tool handle the rest. This saves a ton of time.
Here’s a quick look at how Buffer works:
Top tips for automated social media updates
Make updates timely: When you’re scheduling social media content, try to think about the best time to post. For example, content like “7 things to do in London over the weekend” will make more sense on a Thursday or Friday afternoon than a Sunday.
Customize the message for each network: It’s a good idea to customize your updates for each network you’re posting on.
Add a personal touch: Adding in a personal touch to your social updates by sharing a personal note or anecdote can be key in humanizing your messages. Here’s an example below from our Twitter feed: “Goodbye, bunk beds!”
The Buffer Optimal Posting Tool will help you to find out which times are best for you to share updates on Twitter. Here’s how it works:
3. Automation as welcoming
Lead generation is almost always on the top of our minds as marketers. The more leads we generate, the more potential customers we have and the more revenue we’ll have to show for our marketing efforts.
Managing your funnels can take a lot of work through and be time consuming, especially as there are often so many components to consider: CRM tools, email marketing lists, social media and much, much more.
Automation can be a huge help here to speed up the process of responding to any leads and also passing information between the various tools your team uses.
Find your tone: For your lead generation to be successful you’ll need to build a connection with your prospect. One of the best ways to do this is through the copy you use in your ads and landing pages. Start with ensuring your tone of voice strikes the right note. Be more conversational and friendly in your communications and less robotic. Think about how to connect with each prospect on a emotional level.
Use auto-responders: For years marketers have been sending auto responder email messages to people who sign up to our mailing lists. This is a similar tactic. Using a tool like Zapier you can send a thank you Tweet to anyone who signs up to your list via a Twitter card.
Tools & Resources
Facebook Lead Ads
Facebook Lead ads make the process seamless for marketers to ask for info like emails, names, job titles, and more. With lead ads, potential customers can sign up for what you’re offering, and you’ll get accurate contact info to follow up with them.
Zapier blog:
On their blog Zapier have shared stories from a few of their customers have successfully used automations to take all of the tedious work out of lead generation. Check out the full post here.
Twitter lead generation card Twitter’s lead generation card is a great way to build your email list and collect new leads.
This card allows you to sign up to an email list or register for a special offer directly from Twitter. When you use a Twitter card, all the user has to do is say ‘yes’ to opt in and Twitter automatically fills in their email address.
4. Automation as conversation
Relationships form over time and it can be hard to find enough hours in the day to build 1:1 relationships with each and every one of your customers. Though it’s certainly a noble goal to have in mind.
Automation, through email drip campaigns, is a great way to create multiple touch points and continue to build relationships with both customers and prospects.
Email drip campaigns are essentially a series of emails scheduled to be sent out automatically once someone subscribes.
Put simply, drip marketing is all about giving people the right information at the right time. If someone just subscribed to your blog newsletter, for example, a drip campaign could send a welcome email right away, and two days later, an email that shows off some of your most-read content.
Email drip campaigns have proven to be extremely successful for many companies and email-marketing company, Emma, found that relevant emails drive 18x more revenue than broadcast emails.
Emma also discovered that automated emails generate 119% higher click rates than broadcast messages!
Drip campaign automation in action
Here’s a quick overview of a drip campaign from marketing automation company Pardot:
Pardot also shared a number of different drip campaign types:
At Buffer we’re building a collection of learning courses (Educational Drips from the above graphic), based on the activities and improvements we’re passionate about. You can check out the courses here.
Here’s how to keep your drip campaigns feeling human.
Top tips for drip campaigns
Use a conversational tone: If you want your campaign to have a human feel about it, the tone your create email drip campaigns in is so important. In 1967, Albert Mehrabian came up with the ‘7%-38%-55%’ rule highlighting that conversation is made up of three parts: The actual words you use (7%); the tone of delivery (38%), and the body language accompanying your words (55%). Therefore, if you’re trying to connect with you need to pay close attention to the tone of your delivery (and body language if you’re including video).
Send messages from a real person: We love to connect with other people and even-though your drip campaigns may be automated, sending them from a real person is a great way to give a more human feeling to anyone reading the messages. Here’s an example of how Unbounce Oli Gardner leads one of their drip courses:
Tools & Resources
Convertkit
ConvertKit helps you manage emails lists and drip campaigns.
Our customers are the true heart of all we do here at Buffer — and we want to make sure the community knows it. We work on this in lots of ways—from striving for excellent customer support to hosting meetups to sending hand-written notes, swag and special gifts.
Delight will always need some form of manual work: a nice handwritten note or a special gift can’t always be automated and that’s the way it should be.
However, one way we automate delight at Buffer is through our email receipts.
Email receipts are an amazing opportunity to connect with your customers in a human way. Everyone who pays for your product or service will receive a receipt and often receipts are missed opportunities to build your brand and nurture customer relationships.
Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, called receipts an ‘untapped canvas’ and publishing recently. As Buzzfeed reports:
“What if we see the receipt more as a publishing medium — a product unto itself that people actually want to take home, that they want to engage with, be fully interactive with?”
Automation as delight in action
At Buffer, we like to show our customers just how grateful we are to have their support in our automated email receipts. Here’s an example:
Top tips for delivering automated delight
Use photos: Humanize your receipts by showing photos of team members, office and / or sharing interesting, biographical data to make your customer feel closer to the company.
Invite questions / responses: A receipt is a great way to connect with a customer and ensure you’re doing all you can to keep them happy. It could be a good idea to invite replies and ask questions within your receipts to show you’ve got the customers back.
Tools & Resources
Receiptful Receiptful helps you send beautiful and engaging e-mail receipts that includes upsells and marketing messages which make you more money.
Receiptful Academy
Receiptful also have an awesome resource center full of tips & tricks about how you can maximize the value of your receipts. Check it out here.
Over to you
Marketing automation can be hugely powerful for any business and it’s key to remember that no matter how many tasks you automate, you’re still dealing with people and the human-to-human connection cannot be faked.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and picked up a few useful takeaways to help your business. Have you experimented with automation at all? I’m super excited to hear about your experience and any tips below in the comments.
Hi - So I'm looking to paint the exterior of my detached garage. The sides are each roughly 21' x 8' so with the windows & doors I calculated roughly 620 sq ft. I had two questions:
(1) The coverage calculator says I need just shy of 4 gallons of paint. Can that be right?
(2) What's my best method of application? It's not that big so I was going to just brush it on, but will it look better if I rent a sprayer?
After killing its section of a provincially funded light rail line, the city hopes to channel funding to a different route that it believes will have higher ridership.
Anyone is capable of mastering social media marketing.
You can take a huge leap forward in just 10 days.
We’re grateful for the opportunity to be immersed in social media marketing here at Buffer, developing our best processes and systems for building a social media marketing machine.
Sound interesting? Simply drop in your email below and receive the first lesson in minutes.
We’d count it an amazing privilege to share with you these tips and systems that have been so useful for us! You can join for free by entering your email above.
We’ll send you one email per day, Monday through Friday, for the next 10 days.
Each email contains a a full video overview of a unique part of our workflow, along with quick and simple tutorials and takeaways that you can implement in minutes.
We’d love to make it as easy as possible for you to put into action the tips and techniques that have made a huge difference for us on social media. We’ve got full info on:
How we get the absolute most out of Buffer for our social media marketing
How we test and experiment with timing, headlines, and more
How we analyze our social media stats
How we save time on social media
And tons more!
We can’t wait to share with you!
Join this course — You’re 10 days, 10 minutes or less per day, from boosting your social media success!
What lessons will be included?
We’d love to give you an early look at what this course covers. Here’s an overview of the daily lessons we’re excited to share!
How to find your optimal time to post (and how to set up the ideal testing schedule)
The complete tutorial on easy (and beautiful) image-making for social media
The best things to share on social media? See the one strategy we found to always work
Where to look to see your very best social media updates (and why they’re so great!)
The most underrated, under-used tip for more clicks: Share the same content more than once
How we’ve made social media sharing easier on ourselves with teams and groups
How to create a custom social media report from scratch (in under 5 minutes)
Putting it all together: A top-to-bottom social media strategy [Part One]
A top-to-bottom social media strategy [Part Two]
Our favorite blogs, courses, and resources for staying in-the-know about social media marketing and growth
F.A.Q. – Frequently Asked Questions about this course
Does the course cost anything?
It’s 100% free!
We’re excited to give our strategy and workflow away in hopes that it might be helpful for you and your marketing efforts.
Who is it for?
Everyone! It’s not tied to Buffer accounts at all, so both current Buffer users and yet-to-be Buffer users can join.
Will you be signing me up for other newsletters or lists, too?
No, we will not sign you up for other email lists without your express permission. Your email’s safe with us.
Help! I haven’t received my confirmation email yet!
If you can let us know the email you signed up with, I’d be happy to look you up in our system to see if all’s in working order. The first email should be headed your way shortly after signup, or first thing on Monday if you’ve signed up on the weekend. If you’re yet to see anything, I’d be very happy to investigate for you!
(Often times, some folks experience a bit more of a delay than others, depending on email service provider.)
We’d love to invite you to join this course!
It’d be a real privilege to share these social media strategies with you and to have the chance to connect with you over the next 10 days.
Evening, gentlemen and gentleladies. I'm new on this forum. Although I'm a writer of novels and short stories, I'll try to keep this shorter than either. Have a Weil-McLain GV-3, Series 2 propane boiler, input: 70Kbtu, DOE: 61Kbtu, output: 53Kbtu.
Bought it used (only 1-1/2 years old) o/a spring '00 and had knowledgeable man install it after I pulled all the cast iron baseboard, pressure tested, reassembled in some cases and repiped (3/4" copper) in this 115yo farm house. I understand electric all day long, but, no offense to any pipe jockeys, I despise plumbing. Definition: If it's designed to hold any liquid and it can leak, it's plumbing and it WILL leak. So, to me, domestic water, drains, rain gutters, garden hoses, buckets, etc. are all plumbing. I was also unfamiliar with gas until the last couple years.
Heat worked fine for 13 years or so until January '14, no heat. Called my man who sent out his nephew who didn't know how to use a VOM I guess. He "checked" the ignitor and pronounced it good. He didn't return (had a real job somewhere). I started digging into the plumbing and the gas controls (mostly research and testing electrics). After ten days, I decided to double-check the ignitor – it was open. Ordered another (271Y/41-406), installed it and all's good for the rest of the heating season. Cheap paper gasket vice the foam type and needed to add spacers to the two bolts – not exact replacement. Yeah, I know, I should've second-guessed the nephew and checked the ignitor myself.
That's the first reason I'm writing – to let folks, as inexperienced as I am, know that it's possible to save a bunch of bucks for your child's college or whatever.
Everything's good during the '14-'15 season until March of this year. Lost heat. Waiting for my man, I called one of the franchised fix-anything companies. They wanted to put in all-new everything for $9500. My man showed up later and wanted to install a new system for $5000 +/- $1000 (I forgit). Anyway, I think it was on this forum that I stumbled across a thread about zone valve power heads, testing them, changing them out, like that. Zone #2, 2nd floor, has been out for several years due to a frozen return pipe (long story, don't really need heat in two bedrooms, master suite is electric baseboard). I used the inactive power head and we got heat.
That's the second reason I'm writing – to thank all you folks who help so many others with your advice and, again, save a bunch of bucks. Also, the background might help with my third reason for writing.
Turned power on about three weeks ago when temps started down. Worked for about a week, then lost heat, kept locking out. Indication was failed power head again which made sense since both power heads were same age, although second one used about 4 years less. Got new power head last week, installed it, same lock out symptoms. I checked air pressure switch, shows 26 volts when it's supposed to. Checked water temp limit switch (aquastat?), in series with block temp limit switch, got continuity.
Checked ignitor, 79.6 ohms, but it looked tired, i.e., some of the sparkle gone with a dull area. Aware of the sensitivity of flame rectification feedback to prove flame, I thought the impedance for rectification might be high. Ordered another ignitor, meanwhile checking everything I could. Last couple days, while waiting, I fired it up several times to take the chill off and then shut it down 'cause it wanted to cycle more often than I thought it should. Got new ignitor (49.5 ohms) today and installed. Fired up and everything went well – it shut down with water temp at 135 degrees. When it fired up again, an hour later, a relay somewhere started chattering like one of those little mechanical monkeys with the cymbals. It finally fired up again, but doesn't seem happy.
Chill's off the house. Everything is fairly much under control, nothing urgent, but why would a relay start chattering but not until after I installed a new ignitor? I have since double checked all connections, wire nuts, etc. Haven't fired it up since then. I haven't pinpointed the relay yet but it could be the t-stat relay (don't think so) or aquastat or air pressure switch if it sounds like a relay. Don't think it's a relay on the gas valve since it starts chattering as soon as the purge blower comes on – or while it's on. I'll put the old ignitor on tomorrow and see if the chatter goes away. I'm too tired now. I'm 69yo with a four-year-old daughter who wears me out, but I don't want her to get cold this winter.
That's my third reason for writing – to ask for any insight on the chattering while I'm checking whatever I can think of tomorrow. Sorry, out of a dozen or so of my short stories, one is shorter than this posting. I know that Trooper will insist on pictures and schematic which I'll try to get tomorrow after a pot of coffee.
I am trying to correct a mistake I made by purchasing a 460/575/1/60 welder. I was under the impression from the seller that the welder was currently wired up at the plug for 460 and I asked her several times for that information and she wasn't able to provide me with it. So I bought the machine, spent the money on getting a 50 amp switch put in my fuse box as well as 30' of 6/3 wire. It wasn't until I had everything hooked up and tried to strike arc when I looked into the cover of the welder to find out its a 3 phase machine. My question is there a way for me to step up the voltage to 460 as well as get my single phase to 3 phase with out killing the bank?
The thin plastic film on rigid foam insulation, is this meant to be removed before installation?
Yesterday I began using PL Premium to glue Dow rigid foam to my basement walls. The foam is still braced in place with lumber. There was a large amount of the PL Premium on a scrap piece of foam. This morning I easily removed the adhesive from the foam, it did not adhere at all. I was wondering if this was from due to the plastic film being in place. I'll be disappointed if the foam falls off the walls before I get the walls framed. Thanks
We are keeping our basement ceiling exposed and are about to put up drywall. My question is, do we need anything to top off the sheets of drywall since there won't be any ceiling per se? Will the plaster do that or do we need some other sort of sealant?
Twitter has long been the place to turn for opinions on everything from who will win tonight’s game to ideas for your next blog post.
And now it’s just become even easier to gather opinions from your audience on Twitter.
With the release of its new Polls feature (available to all Twitter accounts in the coming days), you can now create super-simple polls directly on Twitter with just the click of a button or a tap on your phone. We can’t wait to test them out for ourselves at Buffer and see the results. And, as with many new features, we’ve been eager to learn:
How can you get started with Twitter polls?
How do they work?
How can you use them to boost your marketing and your business?
In this post I’m happy to cover the ins and outs of Twitter polls, how to set them up, and nine engaging ways you can use polls today. Here we go!
First off: What are Twitter polls?
Polls on Twitter aren’t a totally new concept. In fact people have been running polls on Twitter for a long time through either a “retweet/favorite to vote” mechanism or by using hashtags to count votes.
Twitter polls appear to be a much more effective way to run polls and opens up polls to everyone, natively.
Twitter users can now create their own two-option polls and gather votes from their audience. Polls are a native feature — meaning the polls are embedded directly into the tweets, rather than having to use Twitter Cards.
If you want the public’s opinion on anything — what to name your dog, who will win tonight’s game, which election issue people care most about — there’s no better place to get answers than on Twitter. For poll creators, it’s a new way to engage with Twitter’s massive audience and understand exactly what people think. For those participating, it’s a very easy way to make your voice heard.
The nuts and bolts of Twitter polls
Twitter polls are limited to two answer options only.
Polls have a lifespan of 24 hours, and tweeters are informed of how long is left to vote, and how many people have voted — as well as the results in percentage.
How you voted is not shared publicly (so no one else will be able to see which option you voted for).
Once a poll is completed the results can be viewed publicly.
Anatomy of a poll
Twitter polls are made up of a few key components: The two voting options, number of votes counted and the time left before the poll closes.
Before you vote, a Twitter poll looks like this:
Once you have voted in a poll you will see the results as they currently stand, the option you selected marked with a checkmark (only you will see this), the total vote count, and the remaining time left on the poll.
After a poll has ended, the results will update for all to see within the original tweet. Here’s an example from Twitter CFO Anthony Noto:
The fact that no one can see what you voted for is super interesting and means brands won’t be able to target Twitter users based on their votes in polls. As Drew Olanoff explains over at TechCrunch:
Your participation isn’t made public to anyone and I’m told that the data isn’t being shared with marketing firms or brands. I would be really hesitant to respond to a “Coke or Pepsi” poll, for fear that I’d get spammed or targeted by either company.
How to create a poll
You can create polls on official Twitter iOS and Android apps, as well as on desktop at twitter.com.
To create a poll open up the composer and you’ll see a ‘Poll’ button. Here’s how it looks on desktop:
And on mobile:
Once you’ve selected the Poll option, you’ll be able to enter two answer options and ask your question in the text box (just how you’d normally write a tweet).
After you’ve written your question and both answer options, you’ll be able to share this with your followers.
Retweeting polls
When someone retweets a poll, it’ll then appear in their timeline and be seen by their followers just like any other retweet. People can also vote in polls directly from a retweet.
Pinning polls
If you want to get your poll some extra attention you could pin it to the top of your timeline – this is a great way to get some extra votes in and also display the results of your poll.
Polls on mobile
Much like images and video, polls don’t appear directly in the Twitter timeline on mobile — you need to click on the Tweet to open in up in order to view and cast your vote. Here’s how polls look on mobile (in the timeline on the left and opened on the right):
With this in mind, the copy you use to accompany your poll is super important — you need your copy to be engaging enough to click or tap on otherwise they won’t see the poll. Remember, the most clickable tweets are the ones that generate curiosity.
How you can use polls to boost engagement
Polls are extremely new and there’s not yet any public data on how polls boost engagement or the rate at which followers engage with this feature. Some early polls have been very popular though with many people participating and a high level of retweets. Twitter’s Todd Sherman explains more over at Product Hunt:
Engagement is quite high. Novelty is undoubtedly part of it, but I expect it to be a small part. When you look at some of the polls that have gone big, they tend to be ask questions where people have real opinions, or they are jokes.
Sherman goes on to explain that the early signs are that polls also boost conversation on Twitter:
From what I’ve seen, polls spur more conversations around the topic than asking the same question without a poll because people reflect on what others think.
It’s going to be fascinating to see how people adapt to this new feature.
To help you get a head start, here are 9 ways you could use polls(I’d absolutely love to hear your ideas in the comments too).
1. Letting followers vote on content
Polls can be a great way to not only create engaging content for your followers but to also involve your followers in the content creation process and allow them to play a part in deciding what content you publish.
Example: The Oakland Raiders used a poll to let fans choose which player they’d like to see in the behind the scenes content.
2. Asking for Predictions
Whether it’s who will win the NFL game or who will come out on top in the latest TV talent show, predictions have been a huge part of Twitter conversations for many years. Polls provide a new, fun, and engaging way to ask for predictions from your audience and a platform from which to build conversation.
Example: NFL on ESPN used polls to ask followers to make predictions on a live game.
3. Having fun
Polls don’t always have to be serious and using Twitter’s new feature as a way to have some fun with your followers could be a great way to boost engagement.
Example: Here’s a fun example from Norm Kelly, City of Toronto Councillor, where he mentions some of Drake’s lyrics:
Requesting feedback from customers can sometimes feel like a big ask. Polls could be a great way to get bitesize pieces of product feedback in a more fun, snackable way.
Try to think about scenarios within your product, learnings you’re after or hypotheses you’re looking to validate that can be broken down into simple two-answer questions and put them out there as polls.
Polls won’t give you all the data you need to move ahead with big decisions, but they could help you to get the ball rolling.
Example: Here an example poll aimed at finding about about how well-used a feature is
5. Reacting to real-time events
Twitter is amazing for real time coverage and reaction to events, and polls add another layer to this real-time engagement. Instead of tweeting a question to your followers and trawling through hundreds of replies to gauge reaction, you can use a poll to check what your audience things.
Example: Poll reactions to events during live sports events or television shows.
6. Gathering opinions for news stories
For years, news companies have polled opinions to sit alongside and support their stories. Twitter polls are a fantastic way to quickly see a snapshot, public opinion on a topic.
If you’re writing a news piece or even something for your blog, you could create a Twitter poll to include within your piece.
Example: Below is an example poll we could use to gather feedback for a piece on Twitter polls (how meta).
7. Lean market research
Polls provide an awesome way to grab opinions from a snapshot of your audience. If you have a hypothesis floating around about your market, you could create a simple poll as a first step to validating your thoughts.
This quick, lean approach will take minimal time and give you results in 24 hours or less. From your results you can then look at whether or not you’d like to further explore your original hypothesis.
Example: A market research poll could look like this.
8. Feedback on what you post
Fans and followers love to feel connected to their favorite brands and individuals. Polls open up the opportunity to build even stronger connections.
You could use polls to give your followers the opportunity to help shape your content strategy and provide feedback on what they’d like to see more (or less) of in one simple click.
Example: Twitter Support asking what content their followers would like to see in their Twitter feed
9. Embed polls in a blog post
Embedding your tweets is a great way to increase reach and drive more attention to your profile. Embedding tweets containing polls into your blog can add an interactive element too.
This could be a great way to engage your readers and get them re-engaging with your content or Twitter account to discover the results.
Once a poll within your embedded tweet is over, the tweet will show the results and still provide added value to your overall blog post.
Example: Here’s an example of an embedded tweet:
We’ve got polls now! Which typeface do you prefer? — Twitter Design (@design) October 21, 2015
Over to you
It’s awesome to see Twitter rolling out new features. I can’t wait to see how creative everyone gets with polls and will be sure to come back and update this post as more research, data and case studies emerge.
What do you think to Twitter polls? How will you use them?
I’m excited to hear your ideas and carry on the conversation in the comments below.
