Social media engagement is a great way to form deep relationships with your customers. One way to engage your audience and build loyalty is by offering special promotions. As with any advertising or marketing promotion, you must include a clear call-to-action.
To help you get started with social promotions, I’ve listed out several types of calls-to-actions, how to write a strong call-to-action and how to track the success of your social promotions — examples included (scroll down a bit)!
Types of calls-to-action in social media:
- Take advantage of a promotion (claim a discount, freebie, coupon)
- Enter contact information into a form (newsletter, lead gen, contest)
- Social platform promotion (join us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram)
- Use a specific hashtag (#oscars, #livemas, #xbox360)
- Click to share with a friend (by email, on Facebook, retweet)
- Leave a comment (on a blog post, status update)
This list isn’t all-inclusive but it does cover all the basics (I think? If I left something out, please let me know in the comments).
Writing compelling calls-to-action for a social media audience:
- Be sure the call-to-action has a sense of urgency tied to it (limited time offer, today only)
- Make sure the call-to action is clear (click here to enter, download your free white paper, use this hashtag)
- If the call-to-action takes place on a different page than the conversion (for example you ask people on Twitter to click a link and fill out a form) be sure the landing page message matches the call-to-action.
- For example if you tweet “20% off today” the landing page should reflect “20% off” not half-off or 15% off.
- Here is an example of a tweet from Royal Caribbean in which they offer a $200 on-board credit if you book today. You can see their landing page clearly matches the message of the tweet.
Click to make image larger.
Tracking the success of your call-to-action:
If you’re not yet an analytics pro, that’s okay. There are really simple ways to track the effectiveness of your call to action. You can:
- Create a social media specific promo code that has to be redeemed to get the office. Then you just need to count up how many people used the promo.
Example of a trackable Facebook promo code. - Create a trackable URL and look for the results in your Google Analytics account.
- Google: URL Builder
Google’s URL builder that allows you to create trackable links.
- Google: URL Builder
- Design a coupon that has to be printed out and brought to your retail location.
Example of a trackable, printable coupon on Facebook.
I hope all of these examples gave you great ideas for running your own social promotions. Leave a comment below with your #1 tip for writing a strong social call-to-action!
