How The Right "Call To Action" Can Take Your Rescue Facebook Page To The Next Level

Tuesday, Jun 7, 2016

Rachel
Schwartz

Hopefully you caught our last 2 'Tech Tip Tuesday' blog posts and so are up to speed on all things related to Facebook Pages (if you haven't, read them here and here).

This week we're tackling the simple, yet suprisingly elusive, 'Call to Action' (or CTA) button on your rescue's Facebook Page.

So why is such a little button so important? Well, as the name suggests, the CTA is your chance to tell anyone who lands on your FB page what you'd like them to do. Donate? Adopt? Purchase Products? This is where you have the chance to make it happen!

THE CALL TO ACTION: GETTING YOUR RESCUE WHAT IT NEEDS

Let's start with TABS. The CTA button actually lives near all the different 'tabs' your FB page has. Just like the CTA, you can customize the type of tabs your audience is seeing, as well as the order.

To add new tabs or to switch the order of your existing tabs, just click on “More" and start moving things around

If there’s something you really want your fans to see or do, like signing up for your newsletter, you can reposition your tabs so that “Newsletter signup!” appears in the first 4 tabs.

Now, take a look right above those tabs. Here is where you'll find that little “Call to Action" button. You might think that users only have the option to “Like” your page, but the CTA button allows you to add another interaction for users to take.

Once you click 'Edit button' you'll be given 7 options to choose from.

You will want to choose the CTA that matches your rescue's goals. So if you just want people to learn more about your rescue, you can select 'Learn More' and then in the 'website box' below it, link them to your website. You could also make it link to a donations page instead.

The CTA can change too. For example, let's say you have your annual fundraiser coming up. Then you can change the CTA to 'sign up' and link to your event registration website.

After you set up your CTA, you can check if people are actually clicking on it by looking at the right hand side box of data 'insights' (more on what those are next week) on your Page.

Last week no one clicked to learn more about us (sad face) but that's ok. We can now work on how to improve that. For example, our content might not have been compelling enough to entice people to learn more about us; or we may not have enough new users who need to learn about us...monitoring this is useful

DON'T FORGET...

While the CTA is pretty straightforward we have seen a lot of rescue pages either not use it at all, or have the wrong website links for their CTA.

So if you're going to set it up make sure it's (1) up to date based on your rescue needs and (2) the link works!

Here's a couple more examples of how other businesses use the CTA button.

EBates whant people to shop, so it links them to their shopping site.

On the other hand, Time wants people to sign up for their magazine, so it calls people to go there

Curious about the best CTA for your rescue? Reach out at spark@sparkie.io and we'll 'take action' on that for you!