by Valeh Nazemoff, founder of Engage 2 Engage and author of “Energize Your Marketing Momentum“
Many businesses are making a HUGE mistake when it comes to social media marketing.
They focus on the number of followers.
More followers means a wider reach, and that’s better for business, right?
Growing followers is a helpful metric, but only to a point. To see the best results from social media marketing, you need to focus on your call-to-actions (CTAs), not just on followers.
Let’s take a closer look at the importance of CTA in social media and how to make the most of your efforts.
Social Media is Essential for Marketing Momentum
As we break down in “Energize Your Marketing Momentum“, social media is a vital tool for marketing momentum. It’s one of the best platforms you can use to connect with your audience at every stage of the buyer journey. You can leverage social media in the awareness stage to introduce yourself to new potential leads, but you can also use it to nurture long-term relationships with existing customers.
But how can you determine if your social media marketing strategy is successful or not? A lot of brands consider the number of followers they have, and how much they are growing their follower base. The reason why a lot of companies focus on followers is that they see social media as a tool primarily for the awareness stage. It’s true, social media can help you get your brand in front of new prospects, so growing your audience can help.
But what happens after they follow you?
The benefit of social media doesn’t end with the awareness stage and new followers. In reality, you can (and should) post content that targets users in different stages. Some content is geared toward the awareness stage, but other content should be for the consideration, decision, and advocate stages.
When creating content for various stages, getting followers is not always the goal. It’s great if you can get new viewers to follow your account, so you can use the upcoming content to move them through the buyer journey. But after someone is already following you, there are more important ways to ensure value.
Call-to-Actions are Key
What should you focus on, if not followers?
Instead of focusing on only generating followers, brands must prioritize their social media calls-to-action (CTA).
Why?
That’s how you can best use social media to drive the desired action. Note, the desired action is not always a purchase. If you’re sharing a post about a free checklist to appeal to those in the consideration stage, then your CTA would direct them to download the checklist.
Including CTAs on every social post helps encourage users to complete the preferred action. Depending on the stage the content targets, the actions could include:
- Visiting your website
- Clicking on a landing page
- Downloading something
- Booking a call
- Leaving a comment
- Sending you a message
- Sharing the post
- Completing a form
The goal of the CTA is to help propel the target prospect throughout their buyer journey. Therefore, the CTA should align with what you want prospects or customers to do in that stage. Think about what the next action step would be if you had connected via email or phone instead. Then, turn that next step into a valuable CTA.
Adding a CTA to your social content is a meaningful (and straightforward) way to drive prospects to the next step. Telling people what you would like them to do is the easiest way to increase the likelihood that they complete the action.
CTA Tips for Social Media
Generally speaking, social media posts are short and punchy. You don’t want to add a long, drawn-out CTA that will lose your audience. Instead, you need effective CTAs that drive your desired actions.
Here are some helpful CTA tips to keep in mind for social media content:
- Use action words
- Tie the CTA to the content (it should be relevant to your post)
- Make the action as simple to complete as possible
- Test different CTAs/words to see what resonates with your audience
- Mix it up. Don’t use the exact CTA every time
- Make sure the CTA is clear
- Be concise
Streamline Marketing Momentum with Automation and Delegation
Followers are not the most important thing for your social media strategy. While you want to grow a valuable audience, you ultimately want to use social channels to drive the desired results.
When it comes to social media CTAs (and the rest of your marketing momentum activities), automation and delegation are extremely valuable. Crafting compelling CTAs, creating social content, posting content, and engaging your audience all require time and expertise.
Trying to do all of this yourself is a recipe for disaster. It eats away at the time you can spend on core business activities and can drain the resources of your team as well. Handling all of the steps of marketing momentum, including social media and CTAs, can be a huge challenge for these reasons. By delegating to an external digital marketing expert company, you can free up internal resources while still driving your marketing momentum.
Improve your social media marketing efforts today by focusing on CTAs. Leverage automation and delegation to streamline the process and boost productivity.
Valeh Nazemoff is an accomplished speaker, bestselling author, coach, and the founder of Engage 2 Engage, a digital marketing services company. Her books, Energize Your Marketing Momentum (2023), Supercharge Workforce Communication (2019), The Dance of the Business Mind (2017), and The Four Intelligences of the Business Mind (2014) aim to help businesses create order from chaos.
