Life

Here's How To Customize Your Instagram Polls As Much As You Want

by Kaitlyn Wylde
Instagram

If you've been stuck in a work hole all day and are now starting to notice that all of your co-workers have their heads in their phones and are buzzing about an Instagram update, you're going to want to catch up ASAP so you don't get left too far behind. As of Oct. 3, Instagram is officially taking a stride to make stories more interactive by adding a polling feature. And if you're wondering if you can only vote yes or no in new Instagram polls, you'll be happy to hear that the whole polling experience is totally customizable. You can basically poll your friends and followers on whatever you want, with whatever options you choose — yes, you're about to become heavily addicted. Goodbye battery life, see ya never!

Instagram polls are a neat little feature that have been seamlessly added to your story platform. Once you take a picture or video and are brought to the editing page before publishing, you'll notice that in your upper right hand corner sticker tab, there's a new sticker in town: polls. In all of its blue and green glory, the polls sticker is here to make Instagram stories so much more fun. (And also to encourage our indecisive nature and make us fully dependent on Instagram for all mental processing, duh.)

To customize the poll sticker to best suit your polling needs, here's what to do:

Get The Content

Instagram

First, you'll need to take a picture or shoot a video — you'll need some sort of content to add your poll to, of course. But there are no rules. You can be as weird as you want so feel free to take a video of a squirrel eating an acorn and ask your friends what you should be for Halloween. Or, of course, you can be a little bit more clear and show your friends and followers the two cupcakes you can't chose between and let them chose for you.

Pick The Poll

Instagram

First, obviously, select the poll sticker. That's where you'll set up the question and customize the answers. You'll have to find a way to phrase the question so that there can only be two response options. On the top line, ask your friends and followers a concise question.

Instagram

Once you're happy with the way the poll looks — you can decorate the story just as you would with any other post, emojis, stickers, text, filters, etc — just share the story with either individual friends or all of your followers. Some polls might be more private so you might only want select people to be able to vote, while other polls you'll want as many opinions as possible!

Customize The Answers

Instagram

While it might look like "yes" and "no" are your only options, all you have to do is tap the answers and a cursor will appear that allows you to change the answers to whatever you please. Not all questions have yes or no answers, after all so change them to whatever works for you.

Publish The Poll

Instagram

When you share your story, the poll will go live instantly. If you've posted other stories that day, the poll will just add onto the queue, like any other frame. Yes, polls are just a part of your regular stories, all your daily multimedia posts are shared in one place. Once you share the story, people can start voting and you can see the results come in real time. Once the poll has been up for a while, you can start to get a better sense of which way the data is going to fall. Not only can you see which option is in the lead, but you can see which of your friends voted and what they voted for. #EastCoastOystersFTW