Early adopters 
have been evaluating TwitPolls for the last several weeks. I’ve tested it out with our @CTOvision account and see great promise for this easy to use engagement tool.
Early adopters have been evaluating TwitPolls for the last several weeks. I’ve tested it out with our @CTOvision account and see great promise for this easy to use engagement tool.
Here is a bit more on TwitPolls and some of its relevance for enterprise technologists:
- TwitPolls is powered by the technologies and leadership team of WayIn, so it is based on a great/scalable cloud and backed by a firm with staying power.
- TwitPolls is well named. You can tell from the name that it is designed to leverage the power of Twitter to enable polling.
- Part of the power of TwitPolls is how easy it is to use. If you can use Twitter you can use TwitPolls. Just login, ask a question and tweet it out. The possible answers to your question will be turned into hashtags (pound sign # plus the answer). When a follower replies with the hashtag answer, TwitPolls tracks the answers and reports back to you.
- Since TwitPolls operates on a “Freemium” model, anyone can start to use it for free, and you get great value even at this free level. But enterprises can upgrade to a more powerful version that will enable better management of campaigns.
- Since TwitPolls lets you leverage your existing Twitter timeline, there is no need to force people to leave Twitter to use the service. This is especially useful for people using mobile devices. But really no one wants to have to open a new page just to take a poll.
- I have used it to gather input on what people want us writing about here at CTOvision.com and plan on doing more of that in the future. I expect many bloggers will use it for similar purposes.
- But some of the most interesting use cases will probably come from firms that want to get feedback on products and services. If you sell products or services to people who use social media, you will get benefit from TwitPolls.
- There are also many potential government use-cases. Consider the example of emergency response. This could be an incredibly fast way of pulsing a community and seeing who needs help and who is fine and who is connected and can communicate and what regions have no ability to connect. This is one of many use cases related to emergency response. And there are many others we can think of related to government service to citizens.
Some concluding thoughts/recommendations:
Since TwitPolls has already proven its ability to deliver value and since it is backed by a cadre with proven past performance in building things that scale, it is going to become a part of the fabric of the Internet. If you use Twitter check it out and learn how you might use it yourself. If you don’t use Twitter, check it out so you understand what it is that everyone else is going to be using.
To generate a TwitPolls poll, just log into http://twitpolls.com and ask a question.
Here is a video that spells this out in a nice visual way:
Here is more from their April 12 2012 press release:
PRESS RELEASE
April 12, 2012, 11:23 a.m. EDT
TwitPolls Launched by Wayin to Allow Twitter Users and Brands to Engage with and Gather Real-Time Feedback from Twitter Followers
TwitPolls Makes Questions & Answers and Polling Among Followers as Easy as #Pie
DENVER, Apr 12, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Wayin, an online social engagement service, announced the launch of TwitPolls, an interactive, social survey and polling service that allows Twitter users to ask questions of their followers and receive tallied results at the close of the user-determined polling timeframe.
Brands can now get real-time feedback from their Twitter followers without forcing followers to leave the familiar Twitter environment.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been fortunate to develop solid Twitter followings for both the Avalanche and Nuggets, largely because we’re always looking for new ways to interact with our fans,” said Jared Harding, Manager of Interactive Media & Digital Strategy for the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche. “TwitPolls has been just that — a new, unique way to create quick conversations, measure sentiment on various topics, and get real-time feedback from our teams’ followers. We look forward to using it more frequently and continue gauging fan response.”
“The beauty of this service is its simplicity and alignment with current Twitter behavior,” said Tom Jessiman, CEO of Wayin. “Most polling services require a user to click a link from Twitter which links to a new website. If you are on a mobile device, this can be a deal killer. By keeping the questions inside Twitter, users stay engaged without the headaches of navigating to multiple websites and applications.”
Imagine watching a basketball game and simultaneously reading the banter between fans of both teams on Twitter. Instead of just the repetitive back and forth, engagement can go one step further. TwitPolls allows the @DenverNuggets or its fans to post the tweet, “Think @gallinari8888 will get a triple-double? #Yes #No”.
Interested followers can click, “Reply to this tweet” inside the Twitter newsfeed with the already established hashtag answer. There’s no need to reinvent the consumer experience. Just tweet a question and let TwitPolls do the rest.
“We’ve developed an enormous worldwide community of over 65,000 developers, and we’re always searching for the best ways to interact with them through social media,” said Paul Hinz, Chief Marketing Officer for Liferay, Inc. “TwitPolls allows us to regularly engage our community by posting questions that help us determine feature priorities, event locations and more. This ultimately helps us to create a better product while also building greater brand awareness and loyalty.”
By using Twitter’s public API, Wayin can scan the fan responses, tally the results and present analytic charts to participants in real-time within Twitter.
The core service of TwitPolls is free. Anyone can post a poll to their Twitter followers and view real-time results free of charge. Enterprises that want additional functionality such as leaderboards, additional games or customized charts and graphs can speak with a company representative for branded TwitPoll engagements.
More details are available at http://www.twitpolls.com or http://blog.twitpolls.com/ .
About Wayin
Wayin is a mobile and online service that generates “one-to-many” conversations between individuals, brands, enterprises, schools and public sector agencies with their fans, customers, communities and citizens. Wayin can be accessed at www.wayin.com or by downloading the Wayin application for iPhone or Android.
Wayin can also be integrated into a brand’s existing mobile app, on its website through a widget, or as a Facebook app. Wayin can be used as a second screen for live events–and is already integrated in to AT&T’s U-verse service.
SOURCE: Wayin
Wayin
Sarah Uhran, 917-921-8996
sarah.uhran@wayin.com
or
Zeno Group for Wayin
Todd Irwin, 650-801-7951
Todd.irwin@zenogroup.com
