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I chose the “poll” element in Instagram stories. Quick and easy to set up and get responses.
Polls are posted from my individual, public Instagram account of 700+ followers (as of Mar 2026).
I have a Telegram channel that I’ve used before for polls, but with a measly 11 subscribers (as of Mar 2026), it felt like extra work for too few results.
I also considered cross-posting to other platforms, such as X/Twitter and Threads, but I knew that would be more work in both the posts and the data collection.
As I only had one main research question, it felt fitting to stick to a poll: 1 question, repeat on the relevant days.
It could’ve been more in-depth and then it could’ve been a questionnaire on Google Forms or Tally Forms, but I decided to accept possible variations in day-to-day data and stick to 1 question.
In Instagram, the “poll” element only has 4 options, and so I used that so that 1st, 2nd and 3rd responses were for the ranges I wanted, and the 4th would be the “Other” response. The latter would have to be a catch-all both for “0 house visits” responses and “Not Applicable” responses.
“0 house visits” are interesting in itself, but because I haven’t set up for elaboration, I decided it’s okay to combine it with the “Not Applicable” responses and concentrate on the number range responses.
So yeah, this was meant to be a fun and easy mini-project, and I needed to set limits so it remains fun and not a burden for me. So I restricted the poll to this format, on just one platform.
It’s easy to get the numbers from the polls, which Instagram compiles and calculates for you.