--- title: "Polls for Slack communities and community managers" url: "https://simplepoll.rocks/use-cases/slack-communities/" description: "How community managers use polls in public Slack communities to pick event topics, host AMAs, welcome new members and survey the membership." --- # Polls for Slack communities For: Slack community managers A Slack community is not a company. Nobody has to answer you, half the members are lurkers, and a careless `@channel` reaches thousands of people who did not ask for it. Polls work well here because they are the lowest-effort way for a quiet member to take part: one click, no message to write. These are the polls that keep a community active without turning into noise. ## Example polls Paste any of these into the message box in Slack. ```text /poll "What should the next community call cover?" "Hiring your first engineer" "Pricing teardown" "Tools we actually use" allow-options order-results-by-votes ``` Members vote on topics and add their own; the most popular float to the top. *Free.* ```text /poll "Ask our guest anything. Upvote the questions you want answered." q&a ``` Questions for a guest AMA, ranked by member upvotes. *Free.* ```text /poll "What brought you to the community?" "Learning from peers" "Hiring" "Finding a job" "Sharing my work" allow-options ``` A welcome poll for the intro channel. *Free.* ```text /poll "Member survey" "Three questions, anonymous. Shapes next year." anonymous close after 7 days @channel --- "How useful is this community to you?" scale --- "Which channels do you read most?" "Announcements" "Jobs" "Help" "Events" "Off-topic" --- "What should we change?" short text optional ``` The once-a-year member survey, the rare time an @channel is worth it. *Premium: surveys (several questions), closing automatically.* ## Let members set the agenda Before you plan the next meetup or office hours, ask members what they want covered and let them add their own options with `allow-options`. You get topics you would not have thought of, and the people who suggested them tend to show up. Seed it with three of your own ideas so nobody faces an empty poll. The [meeting agenda topics template](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/meeting-agenda-topics/) works for community calls too. ## Guest AMAs A `q&a` poll is the right format for an [AMA](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/ama/) with a guest: members post questions, upvote each other's, and the best questions rise to the top. Open it a day or two before the session so people in other time zones can contribute, then let the guest answer from the top of the list. The [AMA guide](https://simplepoll.rocks/guides/how-to-run-an-ama-in-slack/) covers the whole run of show. ## Mind the notification `@here` and `@channel` in a poll notify everyone, exactly as they would in a message. In a community, that is how you lose members. Save it for the one poll a quarter that matters to everyone, such as the annual member survey. For everything else, post in the channel where the interested people already are and let them find it. ## The yearly member survey Once a year, ask the whole membership what is working. Keep it anonymous and short: a scale question on overall value, one on which channels they read, and one open question. A survey (Premium) puts all of it in a single message. Share what you learned and what you will change in a follow-up post, or next year's response rate drops. ## Light polls for new members A friendly poll in your intro channel ("What brought you here?") gives new members an easy first action and tells you who joined. Rotate the question every few weeks. An [icebreaker](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/icebreaker-questions/) or a [book club pick](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/book-club-pick/) gives regulars something to come back for. ## Templates for Slack community managers ### [Meeting agenda topics poll for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/meeting-agenda-topics/) A day or two before a team meeting, planning session or one-to-one series, so the agenda reflects what people need to discuss rather than what the organiser remembered. ```text /poll "Topics for Thursday team meeting. Add yours, upvote the ones you want covered." short text :thumbsup: ``` Open topic collection with upvotes. Works on Free. *Free.* ### [Icebreaker question polls for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/icebreaker-questions/) When a channel is all work and no chatter, a new team is forming, or remote teammates need an easy way to get to know each other. ```text /poll "Coffee, tea, or neither?" "Coffee" :coffee: "Tea" :tea: "Neither" :droplet: ``` A classic this-or-that. Three seconds to answer. *Free.* ### [Book club pick poll for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/book-club-pick/) When your book club needs to choose its next read and wants everyone to have a say, not just the person who always suggests first. ```text /poll "Book club nominations. What should we read next? Add title and author." ``` No options, so everyone adds their own pick. *Free.* ### [Event feedback poll for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/event-feedback/) Around a team offsite, company party, conference trip or community meetup: a few days before to shape it, and the day after to learn what to repeat. ```text /poll "What would make the offsite worth your time?" "Strategy sessions" "Team building" "Unstructured time together" "Learning workshops" allow-options ``` Before the event. People pick as many as they like and can add their own. *Free.* ### [Hackathon voting poll for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/hackathon-voting/) When you are running an internal hackathon and need a fair, quick way to pick a theme, a people's choice winner and judges' scores. ```text /poll "Which theme should the spring hackathon have? Add your own." "Internal tools" "Customer delight" "AI experiments" allow-options close after 3 days ``` Picking the theme a week ahead. Open to new ideas. *Premium: closing automatically.* ## FAQ ### Can I run polls in a free Slack community? Yes. Simple Poll works on any Slack workspace, and the Free plan covers polls with up to 5 options, anonymous voting, `q&a` and member-added options. Surveys and settings like `close after` need Premium; see [pricing](https://simplepoll.rocks/pricing/). ### How do I stop a poll from pinging everyone? Leave out `@here` and `@channel`. A poll without them posts like a normal message. ## Related - [How to run an AMA in Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/guides/how-to-run-an-ama-in-slack/): An AMA, short for "ask me anything", works best when questions arrive before the session and the team decides which ones get answered first. Simple Poll's q&a poll does exactly that: people post questions, everyone upvotes the ones they want answered, and the most upvoted rise to the top. Add anonymous and people ask what they actually want to know. - [How to let people add options to a Slack poll](https://simplepoll.rocks/guides/how-to-let-people-add-options-to-a-slack-poll/): Sometimes you don't know all the options yet: the best venue, a name for the new team, the topic everyone actually wants. Turn on adding options and voters get an Add option button. Anything they add becomes an option everyone can vote on. It's free on every plan. - [What is an AMA (ask me anything)?](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/ama/): An AMA, short for "ask me anything", is a session where one person or a panel answers open questions from a group, usually with the most popular questions answered first. - [What is response rate?](https://simplepoll.rocks/glossary/response-rate/): Response rate is the share of people you asked who actually answered: the number of respondents divided by the number of people invited, times 100. - [Icebreaker question polls for Slack](https://simplepoll.rocks/templates/icebreaker-questions/): When a channel is all work and no chatter, a new team is forming, or remote teammates need an easy way to get to know each other. --- Simple Poll is the #1 polls and surveys app for Slack. Add it to Slack: https://simplepoll.rocks/. Pricing: https://simplepoll.rocks/pricing/.