Twitter Updates Polling; Touts 1.7 Billion Votes

Twitter is making an update to its recently released polling feature; instead of a default 24-hour timeframe, poll lengths can range from five minutes to seven days.

Launched in October, the company also touted the success of polls, announcing that 1.7 billion votes have been cast so far. 

The revelation comes as Twitter shares sink to a  record low, with investors expressing concern about user growth. The company has steadily increased its revenue, but Wall Street initially valued Twitter on the expectation that it was becoming a much larger company. (The social media service boasts a massive 320 million monthly active users, but this pales in comparison to Facebook’s 1.55 billion).

While Twitter polls increase engagement, it’s unclear whether this will ultimately get new users to sign up. But recently returned CEO Jack Dorsey has been tasked with improving the product, and is experimenting with various tweaks including “likes” instead of “favorites,” a 10,000 character tweet length, and integration of its livestream app, Periscope.

Polls have been a favorite of mine. I like to get a sense of who I’m tweeting to and view their input on the latest news.

It could also come in handy for this year’s U.S. presidential election. And brands may want to pay for promoted polls.

So…what do you think? Do you like Twitter polls?