CTA Buttons For Organic Facebook Posts
Want to put a Call To Action Button (CTA) on an organic Facebook post? Well, you can. Until yesterday I didn’t think this was possible. Thanks to my colleague Bryan at 10X Interactive, we learned how to to this using Business Manager. Facebook’s Business Manager constantly adds new things all the time.
You can put a button on a link post, carousel post, photo/video post, or just a simple status update!
When you are in Business.Facebook.com, you will want look at the left side drop down menu(scroll down to the section that says “Engage Customers” and create your post with a button.
You will create it as an ad, but you can then publish it to your page without spending any money on it!
Maybe this is a Facebook Ad Secret. Maybe this is a Facebook Loophole. Maybe this is a Facebook trick.
Who cares. These tips and tricks are incredible fun to learn about!
Want to learn more Facebook Tips and Tricks for small business? Need help setting up your Facebook Business Account?
Book an appointment today, read our blogs, or watch our LENS Method social media posting webinar!
8 Secrets of Social Media Marketing That Everyone Misses
Social media marketing sounds easy to plenty of new entrepreneurs, yet they must perceive the contrast between individual online networking use and expert utilization.
Consider it like this: on the off chance that you bake a batch of cookies to serve your family, at that point that is something you can oversee without anyone else. Yet, in the event that you anticipate serving 1,000 cookies to peers over the course of a three-day business conference, at that point that is an altogether more complex issue!
Everything gets more complicated when you move from personal to professional, and the outcomes matter more, as well.
All of a sudden, you aren’t simply posting on your Facebook when you feel like it. Nor would you be able to enjoy occasional the reply and like. Instead, you’re actively trying to drive business goals and represent your brand in a likable way.
The emotional contrast between the two approaches finds numerous entrepreneurs off-guard. To help them out, here are eight secrets the masters utilize with regards to online networking marketing — and that numerous small businesses miss.
Write Down a Policy and Style Guide
Ask them to tell you what the business’s social media policy is, and you’re just as likely to get dozens of different answers. In fact, most employees may look you back blankly in the face.
A social media policy guides the brand voice as well as the decisions a business makes when posting. So, if you were trying to pick between two image types, the social media marketing policy could help you decide on the one that aligns better with your social goals.
Set policies for employee social media use, too. Make sure they know they represent the company! Let them know what sorts of offenses could get them in hot water, including posting extreme political opinions or offensive takes.
Creating a social media style guide can similarly help make posting easier, especially if more than one employee handles the duties. Align everything in your policy and style guide so that your social media accounts can support both your brand and your marketing goals.
Target Your Content and Conversations Towards Personas
Some small businesses get HUGE social media followings …of people who would rarely buy anything from them.
There is a big gap between mass engagement and targeted engagement.
You want your posts to speak to a highly targeted audience based on the traits of your best customers. For instance, if you pitch your services to existing IT departments, don’t be shy about using jargon. Stay current on any discussion, too, so that your ideas don’t seem dated.
But if you want to offer managed IT services to regular businesses, they may not know a CAT cable from a cat collar. Feel free to post basic how-tos, and try to keep terminology approachable.
Decide upon the segments you want to speak to in order to raise your chances of success. Imagine traits of a single person in this segment, including their typical job role, the things they value most, and broad aspects of their personality. This is your “persona” for an idealized version of a target audience group.
You can even name them! That way, before you decide on a post to share or an image to use, you can ask something like: “Would Sarah the retired optometrist care about this post?”
Strategize, Set Goals, And Ditch Vanity Metrics
Always set goals for your social media usage. It should serve a concrete purpose that ultimately benefits your business.
Common social media marketing goals include:
- Raising website visits
- Generating leads through job quotes
- Helping introduce new products to people
- Getting more participants for events, contests, and things like webinars
- Upselling existing customers
- Reminding prior customers to return again
- Promoting a specific brand value, especially through philanthropy
No matter what your goals are, ensure they actually help your business get more money or improve its brand.
For instance, having a certain number of “likes” or shares from a post promoting your content should not be a goal. These are vanity metrics. Instead, you should monitor the number of actual visits to the content on your website. Ideally, you will also have targets for the percentage of people converted from social to content to signup for your related offer.
Carry on Actual Conversations and Engage
Don’t just post into the void or post things you, personally, want to read.
Everything you post should be targeted towards the personas you have created and tied towards business goals.
You want your audiences to feel like your brand is carrying on a conversation rather than just talking at them.
Respond to certain positive comments or interesting ideas. Try to see if you can get the full perspective from people who have something negative to say. Make each response feel personal, not canned.
Give your audience opportunities to take center stage. Post a question for them, like “what are your favorite ways to save money?” Ask them if they would like to see more of certain content types, or less of certain post types.
Also, make your social media use broader than just posting on your own page. Use social listening tools to monitor brand mentions and jump in on messages when you think it’s worthy of a conversation. Find other business pages, and engage with them like you would want others to engage with you.
As Andrew Kucheriavy of web development company Intechnic writes, “make [sure] your interactions are meaningful! Networking is about adding value to a relationship.”
Make Time for Off-Schedule Posting
Many business owners go ahead and queue up an entire month’s worth of content in advance.
This is great! Having a schedule makes the social experience more consistent and professional for your audience.
But you shouldn’t be shackled to this schedule.
New articles and ideas will pop up on your radar all the time. Maybe something interesting happened in your industry this week. Maybe you just snapped a great photo of your team at the office.
Give yourself the chance to actually share content during opportunities like these rather than hoarding it all until next month. If you set aside, say, an hour each week to make time for unscheduled postings, then you can flesh out your existing content and make your page feel more organic.
Just remember to stick to your policy, goals, and buyer persona (avatar) guides. Also, proofread twice! Want a really awesome way to create, schedule and automate your social media marketing? Try our free tool, MySoPro today!
Promote Content Posts to Put Them in Front of Targeted Audiences
Promoting content on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can be highly affordable. More importantly, it can grow your audience beyond people who already follow and interact with your pages.
Start experimenting with promoting certain posts and using custom audience building features. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook even offer the ability to target specific companies or hyper-local areas.
If you put just a small budget behind a few key posts a month, then you can quickly multiply the number of people who see your messages. You also generate valuable data based on who does and doesn’t interact when they see certain posts.
Don’t Assume Social Media Marketing Is Easy to Do Yourself
There’s a reason “social media manager” is a full-time job at most big companies. Even for small businesses, managing it all and doing it right can be tough.
On top of that, you may not have the time to dig into your data or revisit your strategies and guiding documents.
So seek out help. Share the burden with others who are qualified and whose judgement you trust.
As Social Media Week observes: “Long gone are the days when you could rely on an intern to manage your business’s social media accounts. Either hire an in-house expert or outsource to a social media management firm.”
Crawl Before You Walk, Walk Before You Run
Similarly, as with anything in business, don’t take on more than you could possibly deal with. Stick to one or two social networks at first. Otherwise, your pages could feel like soulless cookie-cutter copies or, worse, ghost towns with nary an update in months.
Be that as it may, if you stay focused on your goals and your principles, at that point you can begin little to discover progressive achievement. Just once you get the hang of it should you begin to scale out and accomplish more.
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Want More Prospects? Here’s How Facebook Advertising Will Evolve in 2018
Billions of users reside on Facebook. The targeting is so specific, you can even turn off ads to people who have clicked on them before. It can also be inexpensive if you know what you’re doing. No wonder it’s one of the top advertising platform for marketers.
In the next year to come, we can all expect Facebook to evolve in deeper ways. These evolutions include both new features and shifts in the way business will be able to use Facebook ads to reach prospects.
Let’s explore the most important Facebook advertising trends for 2018. With them, you can improve your marketing funnel and hopefully find more leads than ever in the coming year.
The Importance of Facebook Video Ads
Video marketing is a powerful way to connect with customers. A well-made video can be entertaining, informative and very engaging. It can allow you to provide valuable information to your customers.
Video is one of the most shareable forms of online content, too, which makes it ideal for many businesses who know they can count on their customers to be brand ambassadors and share the video on social media.
Mobile audiences eat up video more hungrily than ever. Altogether, Facebook users watch over 100 million hours of video a day.
With just a few Facebook video ads, you can improve engagement and prospecting. You also help people remember your messaging since people remember video almost seven-times better than they do text.
More Diverse Ad Types
In addition to video ads, Facebook has been quietly diversifying their ad inventory. Marketers and small business owners can use these ad formats to accomplish specific business goals.
- Carousel ads can use multiple images, multiple offers, or multiple USPs in one go, providing a richer experience and a more compelling CTA.
- Slideshow ads use lightweight video to load faster and intrude less on the browsing experience. They can be a great transition for small businesses looking to create more video.
- Collection ads allow users to browse through multiple products or informational pages in-app. This grows awareness while generating less friction compared to an outbound link.
- Canvas mobile Facebook ad formats transform your ad from a single video or image into a full screen, scrolling experience. Use them to showcase high-quality assets or nurture prospects further along in the buy cycle.
- Dynamic ads can use a single ad template to promote several products or create customized pitches for different segments. These ads maximize relevance and returns while helping you A/B test more quickly.
- Link ads include a prominent, customizable CTA button to direct prospects to a landing page or offer. They encourage action, increasing conversions.
- Lead ads incorporate a lead capture form directly in the app! We’ll explain the significance of this ad type and similar formats below.
Understanding and taking advantage of these Ad Types will be a large key to success.
Facebook Likes to Keep People On The Facebook Platform
Ad formats like lead ads and collection ads keep audiences in-app as they interact with your brand.
For instance, Lead ads pull up a lead capture form in-app and auto populates it with information from the users Facebook user profile. This feature dramatically reduces friction in your marketing funnel, encouraging more prospects to convert thanks to the simpler process. You also reduce the number of needed assets by getting rid of certain landing pages.
Because of these abilities, Hubspot asserts that Lead ads can “skyrocket conversion rates and make mobile ads more effective for B2B marketers.”
Understanding Facebook’s goals for their user experience will enable you to get the most out of your Facebook advertising budget.
Paid Advertising Increases (As Organic Reach Nosedives)
Facebook is the largest social media site, and its users have a very high level of engagement, with many of them visiting the site multiple times each day.
You probably already have a Facebook page, but if you’re not also using some of Facebook’s paid advertising options for local businesses, you’re missing out on some concrete and affordable ways to attract new customers to your website.
While social media offers an easy way to reach out to users wherever they live, local businesses need to be able to focus their advertising on the people who are most likely to turn into customers.
Facebook Local Awareness Ads are a great way to do that. To run one, all you need is a Facebook page for your business that includes your street address. Facebook will take care of the targeting based on your zip code.
Of course, you’ll need to write a good ad and include a compelling image. But after you do that, Facebook offers an array of ways to engage with customers using their call to action buttons:
- Message Now is a button that lets customers send a private message right to your inbox, which can be great if you want to encourage questions.
- Call Now is a button that allows mobile users to call your business with the click of a button. It’s a very important feature to consider if you feel that the majority of your customers are accessing social media on their mobile devices.
- Get Directions lets customers get interactive directions to your business using their mobile devices.
- Learn More will redirect customers to the page of your choice on your website, allowing you to share valuable information with them or encourage them to sign up for your list.
All the above options can help increase traffic to your site. Because Facebook ads are pay-per-click, you get the benefit of exposure because many customers who see your ad might not click it.
It might be tempting to think that a customer who doesn’t click is one who found the ad to be ineffective. Just remember – many customers need more than one engagement with a brand before they make a purchase.
A customer who sees your ad several times over the course of a month may walk into your store one day without ever having clicked your ad.
Take Advantage of Facebook Advertising Trends in 2018 and Beyond
By looking to the above Facebook Advertising trends your business can find greater successes in reaching your ideal prospects to grow in 2018.
Make sure you combine your Facebook Advertising strategy with other digital marketing practices for maximum gains.