You can increase viewer engagement during your virtual events by opening polls directly in your event. This is available alongside the live chat feature; if you embed the live chat on your website, Polls will be included.
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Our Live Polls feature allows you to insert questions into your live stream for viewers to respond to via Vimeo Live Chat. Polls can be used to gather feedback from viewers (answers ranked by percentage) or as a quiz (one option being the correct response). You can have as many polls as you’d like per stream, but only one poll may be open at a time.
Creating a poll
Once you have set up your live event, you can see a Polls option on the left side of the broadcast page.
- Click Create poll.
- Type in the question and at least two options for viewers to choose.
- Click Add option if you need more than two answer choices. You can add up to four options per poll.
- (Optional) To mark one option as the correct choice (e.g. for a quiz), click the star icon associated with that option.
- When you’re finished, click Save (if streaming with Vimeo) or Create (if streaming via RTMP).
After clicking "Create poll," you will be prompted to enter the question to display, up to four options, and the optional ability to mark one option as the correct choice by clicking the star icon associated with that option.
Character limits on a Poll
The character limit for a live poll question and each of the answers is a maximum of 120 characters, or 3 lines.
Adding a poll graphic to a scene
⚠️Note: This section is only relevant if you are streaming to a recurring event or a webinar via our browser-based broadcasting page.
If you create a poll and you selected Stream with Vimeo when setting up your event, you will need to add it to a scene in the broadcaster page in order to show the poll graphics overlay.
- Below the preview player, select the scene you want the poll graphic to appear with.
- Select the poll in the left navigation menu, then click the corresponding options menu (•••).
- Click Add to scene.
- An icon will appear in the scene thumbnail indicating that the poll graphic is included, and a Show poll button will appear below the player; click that to show the graphic overlay of the poll question and options. Click the button again to hide it.
- Tip: You can add your poll graphic to multiple scenes, but you will need to make sure the Show poll is selected for each scene if you want the graphic to remain in the player when you switch between them.
- Scenes can only contain one poll each.
To remove a poll graphic from a scene:
- Select the scene below the player that has the poll.
- Open the Poll panel on the left.
- Hover your cursor over the poll, then open the ••• menu.
- Click Remove from scene.
Opening a Poll
Polls can be created before going live, but they cannot be opened until you are streaming. Once your poll has been created and you are live, select the poll in the Polls panel and click Open poll to show this poll and allow viewers to participate.
The opened poll will be pinned to the beginning of the live chat so it will be visible to all viewers. You can keep your poll open for as long as you’d like while live.
While open, you can click Show graphic which will show the poll options on the stream itself.
⚠️Note: If you’re streaming to a recurring event or webinar via our browser-based broadcasting page, refer to the instructions above to ensure your poll graphic appears on the stream.
The percentages for each option will continue to change as more viewers partake.
Closing a Poll
Once your viewers have had enough time to submit their responses, clicking Publish results will close the poll so no more responses can be accepted. You can continue to use the “Show graphic/Hide graphic” button to display or hide the final results in the graphic overlay.
Once your poll has concluded and you no longer need the results, you can remove it by clicking Archive.
Keep in mind that the results will not be stored anywhere on your Vimeo account after your event so be sure to take note of them before removing them.
⚠️Note: If you’re on an Enterprise account and hosted a Webinar, you can access how each of your attendees answered on any polls you conducted during your event. Learn more.