Live polling tools turn passive audiences into active participants by enabling real-time Q&A, voting, quizzes, and feedback during events. Using smartphones, attendees can respond instantly to poll questions, with results displayed live for speakers to address on the spot. These tools boost engagement, improve knowledge retention, encourage collaboration, and provide valuable event insights. Popular poll types include multiple-choice questions, rating polls, trivia, and word clouds.
When choosing a live polling tool, key factors to consider include ease of use, poll variety, participant limits, real-time data visualization, visual design, and pricing. Many platforms—including free options—make it easy to host interactive, data-driven events.
What Are Live Survey Tools?
Live survey tools make presentations at events an interactive experience! Let’s face it, listening to a speaker drone on for sometimes hours can test anyone’s patience, resulting in them tuning out. With live survey tools, the monotony is broken up by allowing audience members to engage with the speaker. Not only does this benefit the audience, but it also gives the speaker a brief respite from their monologue.
Throughout the presentation, the speaker can invite audience members to answer questions (generally with predefined answers to gather fast responses). Audience members select their answers, usually right from their own smartphone, and the results are tallied up for the speaker to see and address on the spot. Many live survey tools include a poll creator or poll maker feature, making it easy for presenters to set up interactive polls, quizzes, and surveys to gather feedback and boost audience engagement.
Benefits of Live Polling
Live polling brings a host of advantages to any event, meeting, or classroom session. By integrating live polls into your presentation, you instantly transform a passive audience into active participants. Whether you’re using multiple-choice polls, rating polls, or creative word-cloud questions, live polling is a proven way to keep your audience engaged and attentive.
One of the standout benefits is the ability to gather instant feedback. As soon as participants respond to poll questions, you can see the mood of the room shift in real time. This immediate input allows you to adjust your presentation on the fly, ensuring your content resonates with your audience. Need a quick pulse check? Launch a live poll and get a snapshot of how everyone is feeling or what they’re thinking at that very moment.
Live polls are also fantastic for collecting valuable data and input from your audience. The responses you gather can inform future meetings, spark new ideas, and help you tailor your next event to better meet your participants’ needs. Plus, with the option to add images to your poll questions, you can make your polls more visually appealing and interactive, turning routine feedback into a dynamic and fun experience.
Whether you’re looking to break the ice, encourage great conversation starters, or simply make your next meeting more lively, live polling is a powerful tool. It not only makes your sessions more engaging but also provides you with actionable feedback and data to drive continuous improvement for all your future events.
5 Ways to Use Live Polling Tools to Improve Event Engagement
Nearly 50% of marketers say that audience engagement is the biggest contributing factor to having a successful event. Live polling at events can greatly improve engagement, but there are a few things to keep in mind. These tools are also valuable for team meetings, teaching sessions, and when you need to present to a live audience, helping to streamline presentations, facilitate teaching, and boost team collaboration.
1. Choose the Right Type of Poll
Depending on the event or presentation, you can opt for one type of polling or mix things up. There are many poll types available to suit different needs. Some of the most popular options include:
- Multiple choice questions
- Rating polls
- Trivia/quizzes
- Word cloud
While the first three are self-explanatory, you may be unfamiliar with word clouds. This option asks audience members a question, and they submit one-word responses on their phone. Their words come together as artwork, moving and growing with each response. It’s a great way to discover shared (or opposing) feelings within a crowd!
2. Measure Audience Engagement
Live polling allows event managers to track impressions, i.e., the number of people interacting with the live polling tool. From this, you can see which questions and sessions interested participants the most, customizing future events accordingly for further success and engagement.
3. Collect Votes For Competitive Activities
Many events include some form of competition between groups within the audience. This helps break that awkward wall of silence that exists between people who may never have met before. With live polling, presenters can ask attendees to select the activity they would like to do the most (choosing the most popular option guarantees the most participation in the activity). You can also use the polling tool to determine the winner, asking the entire audience which group performed the activity the best.
4. Brainstorm New Ideas
It’s not unusual for event planners and company leaders to have ideas that will impact future events and/or their company. With live polling, you can quickly and easily collect the audience’s opinion, describing your idea and asking attendees whether they like it or not. At an event level, you may have them select who they would like to hear from next time from a list of potential guests; on a company level, you could ask what they think about an optional work-from-home policy, and so on.
5. Collect Real-Time Feedback
Most events have a feedback form or email to fill out at the end of sessions; however, many attendees don’t bother with them, instead moving on to the next or simply out the door if the event has concluded. Instead, collect real-time feedback during the presentation, asking attendees how they’re liking the event as a whole, an individual session, etc. Attendees can rate all of this on the spot with just a couple of taps on their phone. A rating poll is a quick and effective way to gather immediate feedback on sessions or events.
6 Essentials to Look for in Live Online Survey Tools
1. User Experience
Is the live polling tool user-friendly? If event attendees find it too hard to pair their smartphones, or if interacting with the app is too complicated, most will simply give up (or you’ll waste valuable time explaining how to use it).
2. Device Capabilities
What types of polling does the live Q&A tool provide? Are you okay with simply asking multiple-choice questions, or do you want to be able to ask a wider variety of types of questions, including interactive options like a quiz?
3. Number of Live Participants
How many participants can connect at once? Some live polling apps limit the number of people who can use them at one time (or charge more as the audience size increases).
4. Real-Time Data
Are responses immediately collected and tallied up, so that the speaker can address the results on the spot? Are they presented in a nice chart that the speaker can easily display and interpret?
5. App Aesthetics
Is the polling design nice to look at? It may seem inconsequential, but audience members are much more likely to participate when the interface is visually appealing.
6. Price
Often, it all comes down to price, and generally, the more features a live polling tool has, the more it’ll cost you. It’s up to you to determine where you will compromise to get the right price. Some live polling tools are completely free, making them accessible to everyone.
The 10 Best Live Q&A Event Polling Tools
Here’s the list you’ve been waiting for! If you’re interested in understanding different types of student surveys with examples, be sure to check out this comprehensive guide. Please note that these online live survey tools are listed in no particular order.
SurveyLegend
SurveyLegend is device-friendly and user-friendly (ease of use is one of our main focuses). Our platform offers unlimited responses, even on the free plan. SurveyLegend is completely free to use for basic features and includes an intuitive poll creator and poll maker for easy poll setup. Data collected is updated in real time and shown in colorful and easily interpreted charts. Support is offered through live chat, live web meetings, email, or FAQs.
Poll Everywhere
Offering all the features you may need to conduct a Q&A poll at your upcoming event, Poll Everywhere also includes live trivia content. Poll Everywhere features a user-friendly poll creator and poll maker, making it easy to design and launch interactive polls for instant feedback. It works on all devices and is fairly easy to use. It allows presenters to ask a question, and a chart will automatically update with responses. SMS text messaging is an option if the wifi signal is poor, and questions can be written in almost any language (or you can simply choose to use emojis).
EventMobi
EventMobi is one of the bigger players in the event market, offering all the features you need to host an engaging event. It also includes a versatile poll creator and poll maker, allowing users to easily customize and embed interactive polls for instant feedback. The solution is device-friendly, and there are many integrations with some of the biggest platforms. Ease of use does tend to suffer due to the number of features, and you may need to study up a bit to get the most out of it.
Slido
Slido is a good platform for hosting dynamic Q&A sessions, allowing you to include everybody in the room in the conversation. Slido’s poll creator and poll maker tools make it easy to set up and manage interactive polls. Results are backed up by actionable analytics, which allow you to see which topics resonate with your attendees. Slido is compatible with most video conference and live streaming tools, but works best when integrated with software such as Slack or Vimeo.
Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a popular interactive presentation platform that makes it easy to add live polls, quizzes, word clouds, and Q&A to your slides. Responses update instantly in real time, and the results are shown in clean, engaging visuals that work great for meetings, classes, and events.
OMBEA
OMBEA offers several options for voting during the event, and works with laptops, smartphones, and tablets; it’s also compatible with remote clickers. OMBEA’s poll creator and poll maker features allow for flexible poll creation, making it easy to customize and embed interactive polls for instant feedback. While the designs leave a little to be desired, the charts are updated in real-time, which is important.
Pigeonhole Live
One of the older Q&A polling tools, Pigeonhole Live, has been around since 2010. What’s nice about Pigeonhole Live is how easily it can be set up; most people will have it up and running at a live meeting within 10 minutes. The platform includes live Q&A, multiple-choice and open-ended polls, quizzes with leaderboards, and word clouds. Pigeonhole Live’s poll creator and poll maker tools support a variety of interactive formats, making it easy to create, customize, and embed polls for instant feedback and engagement.
Crowdpurr
This audience engagement platform allows you to create a live trivia game for free. Crowdpurr also features a versatile poll creator and poll maker, enabling users to build custom polls and interactive experiences for instant feedback and engagement. Through its customizable online dashboard, you can interactively add questions, answers, images, custom branding, logos, and more. Worried about inappropriate responses being submitted? You can require audiences to use their personal information so they’ll behave (although, in doing so, participation may suffer).
Thoughtexchange
Thoughtexchange is designed to bring employees together and allow business leaders to crowdsource answers to questions in real-time. It also offers a poll creator and poll maker, enabling collaborative polling and instant feedback collection. The company boasts that its platform has helped shape internal culture and policy at numerous companies. In addition to hosting live events, users can run virtual events that invite members of the public to participate.
Vevox
Vevox has been used by many organizations, but it’s also popular with universities for student engagement. The platform’s intuitive live polling allows audiences to submit feedback and text their thoughts and opinions from any mobile device while a conference or event is in session. Vevox features both a poll creator and poll maker, making it easy to set up, customize, and launch interactive polls for instant feedback.
Analyzing Poll Results
Once your live polls have wrapped up, the real value comes from analyzing the poll results. With modern poll makers and poll templates, it’s easier than ever to create and distribute polls that capture meaningful data from your participants in real time. The results can be displayed in a variety of engaging formats—word clouds, for example, instantly highlight the most common answers, giving you a visual snapshot of your audience’s collective voice.
By diving into poll results, you can quickly identify trends, spot the most popular ideas, and understand the opinions that matter most to your group. This data isn’t just for the moment—it’s a goldmine for planning your next meeting, presentation, or classroom session. Use the insights to create a bucket list of new ideas, focus areas, or even fun activities for future events.
Real-time access to poll results means you can adapt your session on the spot, keeping the conversation dynamic and ensuring your audience stays engaged. Over time, analyzing these results helps you track changes in opinions, measure the impact of your presentations, and refine your approach to maximize participation and feedback.
In short, leveraging poll results transforms simple audience input into actionable insights. It empowers you to create more interactive, responsive, and effective events—where every participant’s voice is heard and valued.
Conclusion
Live Q&A event polling platforms are a great way to engage your audience, be it employees, students, or the general public. It can take events, presentations, and classroom learning to the next level.
Every platform has different nuances, features, and prices, so it’s up to you to determine which is right for your next event. One of the best ways to decide is to take advantage of the free trials most platforms offer by giving them a test run.
Are you using live Q&A tools at your events or meetings? How about in the classroom? Did we miss a great platform on our Top 10 list? Let us know in the comments.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Audience engagement is a strategy in which attendees become active participants in an event or presentation.
Live survey tools allow audience members to engage with an event speaker or during a presentation through polls and questions, generally from their smartphones.
The most popular forms of audience engagement using a live Q&A tool are multiple choice questions, rating polls, trivia/quizzes, and word clouds. You can also use live Q&A tools to create interactive quizzes that test users’ knowledge, as well as comprehensive surveys to gather instant feedback and collect input from participants.
A word cloud is a visual representation of words related to one topic. Often, many people contribute words so that the cloud is a representation of many people’s ideas.
