Earlier this month, I wrote about the launch of Facebook’s new call-to-action buttons.
I’d seen the buttons on a few Facebook pages (Dollar Shave Club seemed to be the first Page Facebook tested the idea on), but it hadn’t been released to all Facebook pages yet.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CALL-TO-ACTION BUTTON SETUP VIDEO
Since then, Facebook has rolled out the feature to several Facebook Pages (including our page over at ShopTab). If you’d like to set up your call-to-action button, you’re in the right place. Follow the steps below to get your button set-up and start driving specific actions on your page.
As a reminder, the call-to-action button can say one of the following:
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Book Now
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Contact Us
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Use App
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Play Game
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Shop Now
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Sign Up
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Watch Video
You can’t customize the text of the call-to-action button, it has to be one of the above options.
Let’s go through the set-up step-by-step so you know exactly how it works.
Step 1: Click “Create Call-to-Action” next to the Like button on your Facebook cover photo
Step 2: Choose want you want your button to say
Keep in mind that some buttons come with little icons next to them (e.g. “Shop Now” has a little shopping cart)
Step 3: Insert the website URL you want the button to direct to
Facebook has provided a “Mobile Website” option here as well. If you’re website is already mobile-friendly you can just use the same link for both.
Here are complete instructions for getting your store link if you have a ShopTab Facebook store: ShopTab Call-to-action Setup
Step 4: Specify destinations for iOS and Android
This is really only important for Pages that are trying to encourage mobile app downloads. If you’re not a mobile app, click the website option.
Step 5: Check the link on your mobile phone
When we first added the button for our Facebook store, the call-to-action button on mobile did not show up immediately. If it doesn’t show up for you instantly, give it a couple hours and then come back to check again.
One of the most important aspects of this call-to-action feature if the fact that it shows up on mobile phones. That’s big for Facebook sellers who are looking to bring more attention to their Facebook shop.
One more thing
There was an interesting comment on our last post about the call-to-action buttons that asked a simple question: Why is Facebook doing this? It doesn’t seem like Facebook to want to redirect users away from Facebook.
While there are several possible answers, the most likely is that Facebook wants a way to provide measurable value for Facebook Pages. After you add your call-to-action button, you’ll notice that Facebook is counting the number of people who click it.
This means Facebook Pages can attribute their results directly to their Facebook page.
Instead of saying “We think our Facebook page leads to x action,” people can now say, “Our Facebook page led to x number of sign-ups last week,” or “x number of people downloaded our app from our Facebook page”.
Facebook wants to give you a measurable ROI. It might also be a way for Facebook to boost the capabilities of their ad platform, but only time will tell.
We’ll be keeping an eye on our own call-to-action button in the next few weeks, but I’d love to hear about other Facebook pages.
Have you seen results after adding the button? Keep the conversation going in the comments below.
P.S. If you want to add a “Shop Now” button to your page, but you don’t have a shop to direct people to, it might be a good time to set up your own Facebook shop.
