You’re a busy restaurant owner, so it’s safe to assume that between coordinating staff, administering payroll and appeasing Betsy C. on Yelp, who “would’ve given this place a 5-star review, but the hostess was weird,” you don’t have time to keep up on every new social media feature.

But there are specific functions that are relevant to your business. We’re not talking dog ears or new emojis. These are innovations that business owners should take seriously and master if they expect people to know and remember their brand.

Instagram’s new Poll Sticker is one of these features. Rolled out in October of 2017, the Poll Feature is the hot new thing that all the kids business owners are talking about. It’s relevant to restaurant owners because it enables them to include a question with two possible answers in an Instagram story.

For you, this translates to increased customer engagement, instantaneous feedback and hey, it makes you part of the in-crowd, baby.

Because we know you’re short on time, we won’t get into the nitty-gritty, but here’s how you use the Poll Feature. Instead, we’d like to focus on how you can utilize this fun, new feature to gain fans and open up a dialogue directly with your audience.

• Let your audience choose your specials.  Make your customers feel like their opinions matter by allowing them to choose the soup of the day or happy hour specials. This demonstrates that you genuinely care about their tastes and you are receiving valuable customer feedback.
• Inform entertainment choices. Not sure whether more people will attend karaoke or team trivia? Just ask! People feel strongly about their interests and likes so that you can make informed business decisions based on their answers.
• Get direct feedback on your digital marketing strategy. Ask customers whether or not they liked your most recent live session or find out if they prefer engagement with you on Twitter or Facebook. Should you post more? Should you send more specials via email? Let your audience decide!

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