What's the Call to Action?

When it comes to marketing your brand, there is always a goal. You want your audience to sign up for your newsletter, follow you in Twitter and Facebook, comment on your blog posts, buy your products, and obtain your services. You want them to complete an objective – to like your posts, join your contests, and share them with friends. You want them to retweet your content, repost it on their Facebook wall, repin your pins on Pinterest. Basically, you want them to take an action, which is why using a call to action in your social marketing campaign is essential.

You may think that it’s obvious what you want people to do, but sometimes, if you don’t clearly state it, your audience will nonetheless be oblivious to it. They’ll read your social media posts, but they won’t click to “like” it, nor will they leave a comment. They’ll read your blog post, but they won’t subscribe to your newsletter. This is why you need to give them a push – a direct call to action. You have to encourage people to go a step beyond just reading your entry to actually completing these specific actions that will be beneficial to your brand marketing.

So how do you effectively create calls to action that garners the attention of your audience and makes them complete your objective? Here are some tips:

     1. State your objective clearly and prominently

If you want people to take an action, then you need to state it clearly and prominently. In a blog post, for example, you can easily end with, “What do you think? Leave a comment.” This is a direct call to action so that people can quickly realize that you want them to leave a comment about what they think. If you don’t place this action call at the end of your entry, then people are likely to simply read the blog post and then move on without doing anything.

Placing the call to action in a prominent position is also a good idea. You don’t have to put it in all caps, or use a bold font just to get attention. But make sure that it’s placed somewhere that people will definitely see it. If it’s a blog entry, ending your post with the call to action is a good idea since some people may just skim through the post, and they might miss it if it’s in the middle. This also applies to Facebook updates – you can place the call to action either in the first sentence or the last once.

If the call to action is on your website, you should place it in a position that gets attention, and also have it in a different color so that it pops out on the page. Ideally, you should put it high on the page and in a central place so that people can really see it. You don’t want it to just blend into the background where people won’t notice it.

     2. Use active language and create urgency

Since you are encouraging people to take action, you should use active language and create a sense of urgency so that people will be compelled to do it now. Examples of some active words commonly used in calls to action include:

- Buy now
- Subscribe
- Register
- Sign up
- Download

And here are some examples on how to create a sense of urgency:

- Limited time offer
- Register now and save
- Today only special
- First ten to sign up will get a free gift

The more active the language and the more urgent the offer, the better. Just remember to always deliver what you promised.

     3. Convince people to take the action

There needs to be some incentive for people to complete the call to action. Ask yourself, what will they get out of it? It can be as simple as getting them to think or laugh with you in your social media posts, or getting them to sign up for your newsletter so they can have access to exclusive discounts and offers. It’s essential that they get something out of completing the call to action. Otherwise, what’s the point, right?

When it comes to social and word of mouth marketing, calls to action are definitely essential. Sometimes people need an extra push before they do something, and a call to action done properly will be just the thing needed for them to do what you want them to do.

Make your call to action clear and prominent, use active language, create a sense of urgency, and convince people to take the step necessary to complete the desired action. These are just a few simple steps that will help you engage and connect better with your audience.

How to Monitor Your Business Brand

Monitoring your business brand is important because it is how you will know if your marketing strategy is effective or not. With businesses taking their brands to social media sites, the need to monitor how brands are perceived by consumers is a must. It is through monitoring that you find out what others are saying about your brand. It is where you can get ideas on how to improve your product, services, or just about anything that can help you improve your business.

Using social media monitoring tools can assist you with your brand. When you have a lot of followers and you want to know what everyone is saying about your brand, you can gather the information you need by listening through such tools. You can also find out what other people are saying, even those that don’t follow you. This is a way to measure if you are meeting your marketing goals.

Here are some ways on how social media monitoring tools can help you improve your brand:

Gives you ideas for content marketing – Through social media monitoring tools, you can get ideas for your website content. It is not easy to come up with content ideas but if you have access to such tools, you can come up with content ideas just by reading through what your customers are saying about your brand. You will also get an idea on what kind of content best engages your readers or customers. If you continue to give them engaging content, you are likely to hear more from your readers.

Find out your demographic – Knowing who your followers are will help you come up with effective ways on how to engage them. The more you can engage your followers, the more chances you have of building a network with them. This can also help you make more informative business decisions.

You can even track conversations made by others who are not following you. With this type of information, you can strategize on how you can attract these people to follow you and join your community.

Customer service – Because social media is an easy way to reach out to brands, customers like to use the platform to call the attention of companies when there is a problem. With a monitoring tool, you can get to those customers faster. And customers love it when they get immediate response from brands regarding their concerns. It makes them feel that they are valuable to the company.

Monitor your brand and other brands – It is always good to know how the competition is doing. If you are in a competitive market, it’s wise to find out how your competition is doing. This helps you stay focused on how you can constantly improve your brand. You can also monitor brands that inspire you. All these will help you measure where you stand as a brand and push you to keep improving even when you are already ahead.

Engage in conversations – Because you can see conversations happening around your brand, you can join in on the conversations. This will help close the gap between brands and customers. If your followers or customers feel comfortable talking to you, then they are much more likely to share their ideas about your brand. It is also a good opportunity to build your brand reputation because you are reaching out to your customers yourself. This is your chance to make them feel valuable to you.

These are just some of the things that you can get from monitoring your business brand. Know what is happening around your brand and gather ideas on how you can constantly improve your brand. Listen to what your customers are saying about you and try to strategize on how you can get your needs and their needs to meet.

Social media monitoring tools can really help your business brand. Just remember that when you are using social media, you have to look into building a community and engaging customers instead of just focusing on making sales. Customers like it best when you make them feel that they belong in a community and not that you just want them to continue to buy your products or services. If you strategize your social media campaign well, you will be able to gain customers just by engaging and interacting with your readers and without having to drop a sales line. Just remember to be true to your brand values. Social media is a great place to build brand reputations so be sure you plan it well and have ways of monitoring your online presence.