A few days back, Forrester published a research about Facebook’s reduced organic reach. Taking cue from the study, several publications wrote about how businesses were wasting time on the network. But Facebook kept its calm and now it’s bounced back with a killer feature.
In Facebook’s words, “Pages are an important destination for people on Facebook, and we’re building new ways for people to interact with businesses through them. Today, we’re announcing a new call-to-action feature that will help Pages drive business objectives.” Facebook is rolling out Call-to-Action buttons for business pages. Yesterday, Facebook promised improved organic reach by introducing these 7 different CTA buttons. And it’s different from the available ones. These buttons will appear right next to the Like button on your cover image. And can take users to pages on Facebook plus pages outside the social network. Let’s look at an example:
Cool! Mark Zuckerberg never ceases to amaze us. What are these 7 CTA buttons:Book Now: You can ask your fans to book a facility like a table at a restaurant or a room in a hotel. Contact Us: You can use this button to redirect your fans to contact form or email subscription form. Use App: App building companies would find this CTA button interesting. This button would lead your fans to open an app on their mobile devices. Play Game: It will let your fans to play games right on their mobile phones. Shop Now: A new eCommerce channel. Sign Up: It’s like the one that Dollar Shave Club is using. It redirects fans to sign up form. Watch Video: This button would send your fans to your video directory, where they can watch any video of their choice. How brands can use these buttons to achieve their business goals: These CTA buttons are clickable. So it means that you can take your audience to any external landing page. For example, when we click on Dollar Shave Club’s Sign Up button, it redirects us to a well-designed webpage with another CTA. NOTE: Facebook strictly spam-controls the outbound links. So, don’t even think of abusing the feature.
And the best part is, you can change your CTA button according to your requirements. A tip to make it more effective: Facebook has kept the location fixed for these CTA buttons. They would appear next to the Like button of a business page. Which means more reasons to give attention to cover picture. Design the cover image such a way that it brings all the desired attention to the CTA button. Rings any bell? Why this update is a biggie: Facebook had provided beta-access to the “Sign Up” call-to-action button to Dollar Shave Club to test if there’re any changes in their acquisition efforts.
“Over the course of a three-week test, the Sign Up call-to-action button delivered a 2.5x higher conversion rate versus other comparable social placements aimed to drive new user acquisition.” Said Brian Kim, Director of Acquisition, Dollar Shave Club.”Thinking about your turn? These CTA buttons are available to a few selected pages as of now, as Facebook is beta-testing the feature. It will be officially launched in the next few weeks for the US businesses. The rest of the world needs to wait till 2015.