Facebook Launches Customized Calls-to-Action for Apps

Calls-to-action and social media are two crucial components of your inbound lead generation efforts. So it only makes sense that you would want to combine the power of killer calls-to-action and your bourgeoning Facebook presence to supercharge that effort. If you're a HubSpot customer, you've been able to use the Facebook Welcome app or the Social Landing Pages app to turn likes into leads. But is there another way to do it for the rest of the world?

According to Sprout Insights, there will be soon! Starting in January, Facebook will let you convert more leads on the social network when they begin approving actions other than just "Like" for apps. That means in order to use this new call-to-action functionality, you need to create a Facebook app. Unless you are particularly tech savvy, the developer of that app will need to get involved in the process of creating the call-to-action, as it isn't something that is simply enabled with the flick of a switch. If you do have a Facebook app or are considering creating one for your 2012 marketing plans, let's dive into how to obtain the new call-to-action Facebook feature.

While Facebook developers said they anticipate being ready to approve Open Graph calls-to-action in January, they also said approvals will not begin until Timeline had finished rolling out. As anyone who has been following the Facebook Timeline rollout knows, that has been a little stop and go, so keep this January start date relatively fluid. We will also keep you informed if a more concrete date is announced.

But that doesn't mean you can't start asking your developer to prepare for your call-to-action submission. In fact, you can submit as many calls-to-action as you want. You simply have to submit each one for approval separately (get ready for some fun A/B testing!). Each call-to-action must also be accompanied with instructions that explain exactly how the action is triggered, which Facebook explains in more detail on its developer site.

Once your call-to-action is approved, you'll receive both an email and a Facebook notification, at which point your app can publish the call-to-action for all users to see. Just as with Facebook ads, if your call-to-action is rejected, you'll receive an explanation for that rejection so you can make changes and resubmit for approval.

Including calls-to-action on Facebook is just one more place to feed your lead generation machine outside of your website. The ever elusive "social media engagement" is now not only easier to monetize, and it extends beyond the passive "follow" or "like." With a call-to-action, Facebookers are given the opportunity to engage with your brand in a much more action-oriented way. With Facebook calls-to-action, people can decide to not only "like" what you're doing, but do something more engaging like "experiment with" your product or service. These are the behaviors of much more qualified leads, making it easier for you to tease out the low-hanging fruit leads to nurture that are much farther in the buying cycle than their previously passive actions may have indicated.

As HubSpot delves into this new tool, we'll be sure to report back on what we learn, mistakes and all! Until then, do you think calls-to-action on Facebook will help improve the quality and quantity of leads you receive from it?

Image credit: Sean MacEntee

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