Startup GoPollGo has become the first polling company to integrate with Twitter's newly launched expanded tweets feature. Now entire polls can be viewed in the details of Tweets.
"Before, you tweeted out a question and didn't have space for all possible options," Ben Schaechter, founder of GoPollGo, tells Mashable. Now, "GoPollGo will give users a preview of all the options."
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Seeing those options have increased clicks to companies' polls hosted on GoPollGo. "The people who are running the polls typically see three-to-four more times engagement," Schaechter said.
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The startup's clients include ESPN, AppleInsider, The Weather Channel and Hotels.com.
Schaechter highlights the site's analytics as a one-of-a-kind feature for Twitter polls. GoPollGo can segment the users who took the poll by a myriad of descriptors: age, gender, region, OS, browser and how influential other people on Twitter were in pointing that person to take the poll.
"When you ask a question, you get unstructured responses back. With GoPollGo you can see what your followers responded plus analytics," he said.
"You're not only getting the answer to your question, but you're also getting a lot of data behind the voters who are voicing their opinion."
This Twitter functionality is not available to all just yet. The expanded tweet option has rolled out to about 10% of Twitter users so far; the rollout will continue in the coming weeks.
Offensive polls will likely be taken down, Schaechter says, but "we're pretty lenient." The company doesn't want to create "overarching rules," he said. So for more adult-themed polls, the team at GoPollGo will likely request the user mark the poll "private."
A chat area on the right side of the screen lets users expand on the reason behind their vote for a particular idea or brand.
For many, the go-to site for Twitter polling is TwtPoll. Schaechter says GoPollGo offers more features than the competition, such as detailed real-time analytics. Plus, it's free.
Unlike their competitors, Schaechter says GoPollGo will not charge by the number of people allowed to participate in the poll. However, companies that want a GoPollGo branded page will have to shell out some cash.
Schaechter says they'll work with companies on finding a competitive price -- the startup doesn't want to charge a mom-and-pop store the same as a giant corporation.
Users login with Twitter or Facebook and post the poll to either feed (GoPollGo has full Facebook Open Graph integration). If you Like someone's poll, you'll receive updates on the status of that poll and the responses. The poll creator can see all the action on the poll -- who answered, how they responded -- and will be updated each time they login.
"It's a fun experience that's going to get you more votes and more views for your poll," he said. "It's fun and engaging no matter how big your following is."
GoPollGo.com is an Idealab-backed startup launched January 2011. The team operates out of San Francisco and Palo Alto, Calif. Schaechter and a staff of three full time developers run the site.
Would you use GoPollGo? Tell us in the comments.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
