Simply asking people to share a post is often the most effective call to action (CTA) for Facebook posts by brands, according to a recent report from TrackMaven.
Posts that include the word "share" garner nearly two times as many social actions (likes, comments, and shares) on average compared with those that do not (4.02 vs. 2.19 average interactions per post), the analysis found.
Use of the word "please" was also found to be an effective CTA, with nearly double the average number of interactions as well.
Of the words examined, "now" was found to be the least effective: Posts including the word have only marginally greater effectiveness than those that do not.
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Despite the effectiveness of some CTAs, the report notes, marketers must bear in mind that the latest News Feed algorithm change penalizes Pages that engage in "feed spam behavior," which is defined by Facebook as "when a post explicitly asks News Feed readers to like, comment or share the post in order to get additional distribution beyond what the post would normally receive."
Accordingly, the authors suggest marketers follow Facebook's advice and create calls to action that are "genuinely trying to encourage discussion among fans."
Below, additional key findings from the report, which was based on an analysis of 1,578,006 posts shared by brands on 5,804 Facebook Pages.
Hashtags
- 83.9% of the posts examined did not contain any hashtags.
- Among posts that included hashtags, the majority had only a single hashtag, accounting for 11.6% of all posts.
- Posts that included hashtags had more interactions on average than those that did not.
- Posts with one or two hashtags had more engagement on average than those with three or four.
- Only 0.02% of the posts examined used seven hashtags, but those that did had exceptional engagement, with 5.41 average interactions per post.
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Punctuation
- 71.2% of the Facebook posts examined did not include an exclamation point, 21.6% used a single one, 5.2% had three, and 2% included four or more.
- The analysis found a positive correlation between post effectiveness and number of exclamation points per post.
- Posts with seven exclamation points had the most engagement, with 7.8 interactions on average.
- 78.1% of the Facebook posts examined did not contain a question mark, 19.6% had a single one, 1.8% included two, and 0.48% had three or more.
- As with exclamation points, the analysis found a positive correlation between post effectiveness and the inclusion of question marks: Posts without question marks had fewer average interactions per post (2.35) than those that included one or more questions marks (2.90).
- Posts that used nine question marks had extremely high engagement, with 6.05 average interactions per post on average, but such post accounted for fewer than 0.002% of posts.
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About the research: The report was based on 1,578,006 posts shared by brands on 5,804 Facebook Pages. All of the Pages included had a minimum of 1,000 Likes.
COMMENTARY: Facebook has quietly rolled out a very small — but important — feature that could make a very big difference for brands: The ability to add a call-to-action button to ads and posts.
Types of call-to-action buttons include:
- Shop Now
- Learn More
- Sign Up
- Book Now
- Download
This isn’t only for ads. It’s for organic posts, too. And it’s not even a test feature that’s only available to the biggest of brands.
You very likely have access to call-to-action buttons and can benefit from them, too!
Why This is a Big Deal
First, the obvious: A native call-to-action button is bound to be good for click-through rates.
We know from testing that users are more likely to act when they are prompted to do so. As a result, marketers make sure that their copy includes a call-to-action. And some will also attempt to include a button within the image thumbnail.
This can only help get more clicks.
Second, this helps marketers since it takes the pressure off of putting these CTAs within the thumbnail images. As we know, Facebook has a very frustrating 20% text rule within images. Every character is important.
Now marketers can focus on a compelling message within the thumbnail image, but save the call-to-action for Facebook’s button.
How to Create Call-to-Action Buttons for Ads
Currently, the only way to create call-to-action buttons is within Power Editor. You can’t do it within your Page, and you can’t do it within the self-serve ad tool.
Note that for now the only content type that can include these buttons is a link share. So it needs to utilize the “Clicks to Website” objective, but only while creating an Unpublished Post (though there is an exception: if you create an organic post as described in the next step!).
While creating an ad, click the “Create New Unpublished Post” link…
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Within the default “Link” view, fill out the link you want to share and promote the way you normally would. The only items that are required are the URL and post text (the commentary you add with the link). Facebook will automatically pull the link thumbnail, title and description (though you can override these).
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Note the new option for a call-to-action. By default, there is “No Button.” But you can create a button with one of five calls-to-action!
[NOTE: It appears that adding the button lowers the character limit for your link to description to something around 132 from 150. You should consider manually changing your link description as a result.]
Something to keep in mind here is that your call-to-action button will only appear on ads within the News Feed, not the sidebar.
How to Create Call-to-Action Buttons for Organic Posts
Initially when I heard about this, it seemed like an incomplete feature. Sure, it’s great to have it for ads. But if you promote posts, you’ll need to create a completely new, unpublished post to add the button. And it sure would be nice to include a button for organic posts, too!
Well, guess what? You can do it! But once again, you need to use Power Editor.
Most marketers don’t realize that you can actually create posts from Power Editor. Honestly, there was very little reason to do this until now. But this little addition changes everything.
First, you’ll want to select the “Manage Pages” option from the top left drop-down within Power Editor.
Next, make sure that the page you want to create a post from is selected on the left. Then click the “Create Post” button.
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That will bring up a dialog that looks identical to what you saw when you were creating an unpublished post. The reality is that you’re doing the exact same thing, but without needing to create an ad.
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Click the “Create Post” button when you’re done.
Highlight the row that includes that new unpublished post to preview it.
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Then click the “Publish” button to bring up this dialog…
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The only step remaining is to click the “Upload Changes” button to push your post live, complete with a call-to-action button!
Ways to Use Call-to-Action Buttons
Call-to-action buttons are great for things like…
- Selling products
- Pushing registration of a newsletter or webinar
- Driving traffic to a blog post
- Pushing downloads of an eBook
- Driving one-on-one bookings
Since there are five different CTA options, it's recommend that you split testing different buttons where it makes sense. For example, if you are driving traffic to a sales page, you may try the “hard sell” buttons (Shop Now, Sign Up, Book Now) or the soft sell (Learn More).
See what works best!
Courtesy of an article dated June 18, 2014 appearing in MarketingProfs and an article dated February 10, 2014 appearing in John Loomer
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