So… you’ve invested in a polling and Q&A app for your conference, class or comms meeting. With providers now offering cost effective annual subscriptions, the platform and app is available to you 24/7… now you have the opportunity to maximise ROI, as well as have a little fun…

Here’s our top 10 ideas showcasing some novel customer examples of how to get extra value from a polling app…

1) Brilliant Brainstorms… Every voice is equal and no need to photograph the whiteboard or manually transfer information from flip charts. Participants enter their answers into the app to show them directly on screen, show approval by ‘liking’ other answers or display answers as a word cloud in an instant.

2) Choose your own adventure… One Vevox customer and avid ‘Fighting Fantasy’ fan is using poll results and hyperlinks to let the audience decide what slide is next in his PowerPoint presentations. Another is an Artic adventurer who presents an audience with the choices he has had to make and clicks through to the consequences of their group decision…

3) Go large… A client recently boosted their account to accommodate up to 100,000 participants for a global town hall - Literally a meeting the entire workforce was invited to. To manage the volume of questions for the meeting host to answer, the message board was opened a week early so questions could be grouped into categories.

4) Team Quiz… Putting together some questions or downloading a ready-made quiz from the Vevox website gets the competitive spirit in full swing. Our most downloaded last year was the Halloween quiz. A simple addition to add to the fun and boost engagement is to leave the message board open to allow people to send in themed jokes between questions. Moderation sometimes required here!

5) Guilty pleasures… A Friday afternoon regular for us- office tunes come from the Vevox Jukebox. Anonymously requested songs are played and commented upon. Seriously who requests Cher?! We’ve also seen conference audiences being asked to set the playlist for the evening events this way.

6) The next big thing?? Share a meeting ID with the team as a virtual ‘Ideas box’ so that if inspiration hits, they simply drop it in there anonymously. Honest, uninhibited and potentially inspirational…

7) Social sharing… A poll result can carry a powerful message. Encourage participants in the audience to screenshot Poll results from their device and share though their social channels with your event #hashtag or @handle

8) Killer content… Content and audience/ market insights are powerful marketing tools but can be time consuming or expensive to gather or create. Use polls results to create industry reports, articles or infographics. Charts and word clouds are created instantly and raw data available in excel for the serious analyst to dice and splice!!

9) Winning Webinars… Without being able to look your audience in the eyes it’s hard to know if you’re on track, or if they’re even listening. A Q&A board and some live polls serve as icebreakers, temperature checks and an engaging back channel and feedback mechanism.

10) Office politics... Got a kitchen dodger in your team! Democratise the tea making with a quick poll! Take it a step further and vote on the quality of the brew post delivery!

What’s common across all these ideas is connecting people, in the moment and whilst some of these are light hearted, they all serve an important purpose. The most engaged employees, customers or event attendees are those that have the ability to share and contribute to the experience.

Download our guide on how to get instant and meaningful feedback in your classes, internal comms meetings or conferences.