How to create a survey on Facebook

Many business owners use surveys to gather useful information from their customers, employees, or other stakeholders. There’s no shortage of tools available for creating surveys. Facebook is a widely used one — no wonder, since the platform has over 1.5 billion daily active users across the world.

A Facebook survey allows you to get feedback from other Facebook users through the social media platform. You can use Facebook polls to field surveys directly on the platform, but currently only through a Facebook Group, Story, or Event, or through a group chat on Messenger.

Why use a Facebook survey?

Even with the rise of other platforms in recent years, Facebook continues to be a social media titan. As such, it can be a data gold mine. A Facebook survey can help you

• Connect with your target audience. Facebook surveys are an excellent source of data about your target audience, in part because Facebook uses robust targeting techniques. You can use the user data gleaned from Facebook profiles to better customize your messaging to that audience.

• Get authentic feedback. Surveys let you gain a wealth of information about how and why you attract certain users over others. And the informal nature of the platform means people are more likely to be frank in their responses. This candid feedback can help you tailor your product, service, or digital marketing efforts even further.

• Reach a broader audience. The more users who engage with your survey, the more users your posts will be shown to — it’s that simple. Because surveys are interactive and require little effort (especially polls), they are a great way to reach more people, expand your brand, and build engagement.

Below, we cover how to create a survey on Facebook. The step-by-step process may change over time as Facebook updates its platform, but here’s a basic rundown.

How to create a Facebook Group survey

1. Navigate to your group.

2. Start a new post and add a poll.

3. Add your poll questions. 

4. Finalize your poll options and click Post.

Kelan Kline, cofounder of The Savvy Couple, regularly uses Facebook polls to learn more about his audience and their needs. He finds polls to be super simple and very effective market research tools. His brand has a sizeable following (more than 50,000 people), so most of the time he starts polls in his private Facebook group, “where die-hard fans hang out.”

Kline says it’s important to keep poll answers brief so people are more likely to respond, providing more data points for his decision-making. “We use the results to plan out our next product/service for our blog readers. It’s great not having to guess about what readers want and are willing to pay for.”

We have covered the basic steps above, for additional details on creating a poll on Facebook, including screen and button names, refer to this Facebook help article.

Facebook surveys work well for those who use the social media platform regularly. They’re also great for quick pulse checks about a simple-to-understand topic.

Need a more advanced survey tool?

Facebook surveys are good for the above situations, but many of your customers may not use social media on a daily basis (if at all). In that case, reaching those customers and getting their input requires a survey solution that isn’t native to the platform.

For example, Jotform enables you to create customized surveys that you can

• Embed on your website
• Email to people directly
• Download as a PDF
• Publish to multiple third-party platforms, such as Tumblr, Blogger, and Facebook

Beyond distribution, Facebook’s limited poll options may leave you wanting more. For example, your questions may require a lengthy description to ensure respondents understand what’s being asked, or you may need to provide more than two answer choices. Jotform addresses this by enabling you to

• Customize surveys to suit your needs. Ask as many questions as you want. List as many answers as you desire. Use checkboxes and text boxes. You can make your surveys your own.
• Integrate with important business services. Jotform integrates with more than 100 software across industries and categories — from file sharing to email marketing tools.
• Accept payments. Facebook polls, along with many third-party solutions, don’t offer the ability to accept payments from survey participants. Jotform provides secure payment integration with its surveys — whether it’s with Square, PayPal, Stripe, or another payment processor.
• Make surveys visually impressive. With Jotform you can create a visually stunning survey to keep your survey participants engaged — instead of just putting a few words in a box.

You can get up and running with Jotform quickly by using these easy-to-use survey templates for inspiration, or start your own from scratch and customize it from the ground up.