If you’re maintaining a steady presence on social media, you’re doing your customers a favor by always being accessible to them and by offering value on a regular basis. But you also want to ask them to get more involved with you by placing various “calls to action,” or CTAs, throughout your messaging.
Whether you want them to sign up for your blog, visit your website, or actually purchase a product or service, you need to make sure you’re framing your CTAs in a way that will land favorably with your intended audience. After all, social media is about sharing, not asking. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you place CTAs throughout your messaging.
Ease into it. There are a lot of blogs similar to this one about “social selling” and how to use your social media to sell more of your product or service. I highly recommend NOT taking this attitude. If your priority is simply increasing sales from the get-go, your head’s in the wrong place.
Add value. Your social media pages should serve to strengthen the relationships between your brand and your customers by adding value to their lives. Their wanting to engage more with you, especially with their money, is a result of that.
Therefore, your call to action should be a logical next step to all the other information that is presented.
If you’re a real estate agent trying to sell a house, do you put the price on the doormat and then ask if they’re ready to buy the second they walk in the door? Or do you make the house look and smell nice before you give a full tour, explaining the history and amenities of the home? Offer information that makes your page a useful place to get valuable, relevant information that helps inform a purchasing decision.
Give value away for free, but imply that there’s more value to be had if they take the action you want them to take. Just like in real human-to-human relationships, the more we put in the more we get out. The same should be true for you and your prospects.
If I join your mailing list, will I be bombarded with asks day after day, or will I get a potentially valuable deal or interesting piece of content that I wouldn’t have seen anywhere else?
If I follow you on Twitter, will I learn about new sources of information that I’ll happily follow as well, or will I simply see your promotional messages over and over?
Remember, whatever action you want your audience to take, desperation will do more harm than good. Instead of imploring them to “click here,” give some semblance of how that person’s life might change (albeit subtly) if they actually do click there. CTAs are a valuable tool in your social media arsenal. Make sure you’re taking steps to use them effectively.
Image Credit: CC by SEOPlanter
