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How to create a poll in VK: community post and group chat
A VK poll is attached to a post or to a message in a group chat: a question, options and percentages. That’s enough for a community subscriber vote. Below: how to create a poll, what settings it has and who sees the results. At the end: when you need a bot instead of a built-in poll.
Where you can create a poll
A poll can be created in a post on a community wall (admins and editors can do this), in a post on a personal page and in a group chat. It can’t be created in a private chat between two people.
How to create a poll in a community
- Open the community and tap the “What’s new?” field above the wall.
- Write the post text if you want.
- Tap More and choose Poll.
- Write the question and answer options — up to 10 options.
- Choose the settings and publish the post right away or on a schedule.
In a group chat, a poll is attached through the paperclip by the message field: Poll, question, options, send. A poll in a group chat can be pinned.
Poll settings
- Anonymous poll. By default a poll is public — you can see who voted for what. In an anonymous poll only percentages are visible. Anonymity can’t be changed after publishing.
- Multiple options. A person can choose more than one answer.
- End date. A date and time after which voting closes, or no deadline.
- No vote cancellation. People who voted can’t change their vote.
- Background. A color or your own image.
Who sees the results
The results are visible to the poll’s author and to those who have already voted; people who haven’t voted see only the options. In a public poll you can open the list of voters for each option.
Polls that work in a community
- Choosing a product or topic. “Which model should we bring in next?” — the vote shows demand before you buy stock.
- A convenient time. “When should we go live?” — with multiple answer options.
- Opinion on a new product. An anonymous poll collects honest answers: people are more willing to respond when others can’t see their vote.
- A vote with a background. A bright background makes the poll stand out in the feed and gets more votes.
An end date helps: “voting until Friday” encourages people to answer right away, and you can announce the result in a separate post.
What to do with the results
Tell subscribers what you decided based on the poll — then they’ll be more willing to answer next time. In a public poll, the list of voters shows your active subscribers; there’s no built-in export, so the list has to be processed by hand.
What the built-in poll can’t do
- It doesn’t work in private messages with a community.
- One question: the next question doesn’t depend on the answer.
- Answers don’t reach a customer card or CRM; the interface has no built-in export of answers.
- A community bot doesn’t create polls: through the API, a poll can only be created with a user token, not a community token.
When you need a bot
If the survey is meant to learn about a specific customer, a bot in community messages is more convenient: it asks questions with buttons, branches depend on the answer, and each answer is saved to the customer card. The bot hands an unhappy customer over to a team member right away.
In CHBT, the Customer survey (NPS) and Customer questionnaire templates work this way. In VK, a bot survey starts with a keyword the person sends to the community’s messages. A summary by option is in Survey answers, and all answers are in the CSV export. Learn more on the survey bot page and in the section on the VK bot.
Survey botBot for a VK communityHow to create a poll in TelegramHow to make a poll in MAXCustomer survey (NPS) template