How to Make a Facebook Poll With Its New Feature
These polls aren't anonymous, so be careful with your vote.
A month after adding polls to Instagram Stories, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild will now let users post polls to the NewsFeed.
Polls are limited to two options, which can be spiced up with photos or GIFs. They can be posted the same way you’d post a status update, but the most important piece of info: these polls are not anonymous. It’s unclear if Facebook will offer anonymous polling in the future.
How to make a Facebook poll, per Facebook:
1. Open Facebook and click “What’s on your mind” if you’re on a profile, or “Write Something” if you’re posting to a Page.
2. Select the “Polls” icon to create a poll.
3. Write your question into the status box where it says “Ask a question” and fill in the two options you want people to choose between.
4. Upload your own images or choose from the thousands of GIFs available to add a visual component to the poll.
5. Set when you want your poll to expire- it can be a day, a week, or a custom time frame.
6. Post your poll and watch the votes come in.
7. As the creator, you and the people who voted on the poll can see how others voted.
“We’ve also had various forms of polls within the Facebook app over the years, but for the past several years there’s been no one way for both people and Pages to easily poll friends and fans,” a Facebook spokesperson tells Inverse.
When the poll feature debuted on Instagram, many users were unaware their votes were not anonymous. Users quickly found themselves in hot water and embarrassed when poll creators saw and reacted to their not-so-nice answers.
Maybe Facebook is leaving the anonymous polling to the positive-oriented messaging app tbh, which the company acquired last month. Polls are not even really a new thing to Facebook itself — text-only polls were able to be created on pages and events, in groups, and most recently in groups chats in the Messenger app.
Yeah sorry, not anonymous.
While Facebook says it released its newest poll feature on all devices, it’s still rolling out to iOS and Android users.
“We’re in the process of rolling out polls across platforms and anticipate that everyone should be able to see them by the end of the day on mobile,” a Facebook rep tells Inverse.
For now, you can poll your heart away on your Internet browser, where creating a poll will look like this:
So perhaps from now on, your Facebook friends will only share their opinions when you actually ask for them, and your grandma will stop offering unsolicited advice and commentary on every single one of your statuses. Or you know, maybe not.
