It’s quite amazing how a couple of words can either make it or break an Instagram campaign. If you weren’t aware, this is the type of power that a Call to Action (CTA) has.
Master the art of creating the perfect call to action can ensure that the success rate of your marketing campaign is literally a single click of a button away.
Instagram has managed to take things one step further by offerings it users the option to include action buttons onto their profiles.
Call to action buttons are in addition to the existing ‘contact’ buttons and ‘direction’ button to allow users to call, text, email or get directions to your business.
The contact and direction buttons are set up in a similar way – so if you don’t have a CTA button available you might want to set them up!
The call-to-action buttons are (currently) one of three types of ‘actions’:
- Start Order: Order food through select restaurants.
- Book: Book an appointment.
- Reserve: Make a reservations at a restaurant.
They look like this, well-used by @lebernardinny:
These buttons can make the conversion rate skyrocket and do a ton for the success of your business.
For this reason, every business that has its own profile active on Instagram should become aware of how to fully utilize the action buttons.
If this is something you haven’t done on your Instagram, here are the steps you need to take to finally add a Call to Action on your profile.
How to Add a Call to Action Button to Your Profile
Call to Action buttons on Instagram are backed up by a limited number of third-party services.
Before you decide to implement a button on to your profile, your business requires an active account with one of the partners that Instagram allows you to choose.
These include Fandango for booking movie tickets, Yelp for making restaurant reservations, and StyleSeat for hair and beauty appointment bookings. See the full list here. Here is the list at time of writing:
Once you’ve finally made an account on the service that interests you the most, here are the appropriate steps that you need to follow:
- Make sure that you’ve made or converted to a business profile. Only business profiles can add CTA buttons – see more about the pros and cons of Instagram Business Profiles.
- Go to your profile page and tap on ‘Edit Profile’.
- Within the menu, find ‘Business Information’ and then tap on ‘Contact Options’.
- Go to ‘Add an action’ button.
- Select the partner you’re working with.
- Enter the URL of your page or account on the partner’s website.
- Tap ’Submit’.
You’ll also see on that ‘Contact Options’ page the section you can add your phone (for call/text) or email (for email) contact buttons.
Once you’ve managed to properly set it up, the button will become visible under the Stories Highlights on your profile like the example above.
Whenever another user taps on it, they’ll open your page in their browser or an external app connected to the service that your action button is connected to.
How to Remove An Instagram Call to Action Button
If you decide to remove the call to action button from your business profile, then no worries!
Here are the proper steps to take:
- Go to your business profile and tap (iPhone) or (Android) in the top-right corner.
- Tap Edit Profile > Contact Options.
- Select the call-to-action that you want to remove on your business profile and delete it.
Which Action Buttons Can You Use?
When the first call to action buttons was launched during 2015, Instagram offered a very limited choice.
Since then, they’ve been including ever more action buttons to meet the needs of specific businesses.
Aside from the Text [SMS], Call, Email and Direction buttons, they’ve included four more choices:
- Book
- Reserve
- Buy Tickets
- Start Order
As you can see, they’ve tailored to specific kinds of businesses, so if any of these options apply to your business, these buttons can become extremely useful.
Top Tips To Improve Instagram Engagement And Conversions
Even so, there’s more to increase conversions than simply adding a button. If you wish to get even more of this feature, here are some tips to help you out.
Use Instagram Live
Studies have shown that over 82% of people would rather watch a live video than search through social posts. This is why Instagram Live has massive potential.
There are only a couple of ways to remind your audience to go to your profile and tap on the CTA than by sayings it’s currently live.
This will encourage immediate action and is considered to be more persuasive than any other way of promotion. During the process of coming up with content for your next live video, don’t forget to include some reminder at the end of each video.
Use Instagram Stories For More Insight
When on the topic of promotion, Stories are unavoidable on Instagram. They’re one of the most powerful marketing tools that any Instagram marketer shall be using, so if you want people to visit your profile and use those action buttons, Stories are going to be your best bet.
Check out some of our creative ideas for Instagram stories to get those juices flowing.
It’s possible for you to create stories that shall only mention the fact that people can go to your profile to book a ticket or make a reservation.
Additionally, you can also create an entire story that is dedicated to this in order to ensure even further visibility.
One of the best moves you can do would be to combine these two options. The optimal number of stories you should be posting on a daily basis is three, so make sure each of those posts you make truly counts.
Add a CTA to Your Captions
Most people won’t remember to visit your profile and use any of the implemented action buttons. If you don’t invite them to do so, these buttons will become completely useless.
That’s why some of your captions should also include a CTA for your audience to go to your profile. In order for this strategy to yield any results, make sure that the captions are straight to the point and short.
They require a sense of transparency for your followers without them needing to select the “Read more” button.
Also, make sure to include CTAs in the primetime posts. The best days to pull this off are Mondays and Thursday,s but don’t post them around 3-4 P.M.
Need more tips for captions? Check out our post on the best way to write Instagram captions to improve engagement.
Use Promo Codes
Promo codes can be an incredibly powerful tool for increasing both the click-through and conversion rates.
If you offer a promo code to your followers exclusively, there chances that they’ll make use of your action button should increase exponentially.
Track the Success of the Action Button
Keeping track of the important metrics is essential for achieving success on Instagram. Simply checking in on the number of people that follow you isn’t enough, you’ll need to do some further searching.
Once you’ve implemented the action button, you’ll want to keep a close eye on the way it’s performing.
Unfortunately, the built-in Instagram Analytics doesn’t allow you to do this, so you’ll have to use a third-party app for accurate information.
This is important if you wish to understand which campaigns have garnered you the most clicks. Once you’ve run a couple of them, compare their performance to see what is causing drive for most people to visit your profile and tap on the action button.
Use a Branded Instagram Profile Picture
Your profile picture should immediately draw the attention of every user who visits your Instagram profile. What’s more, it’ll show up next to every comment and post that you share. So it’s very important that yours looks impressive.
It should be easily recognizable and representative of your business. You should also aim to use the same profile picture that can be found on all your other social media profiles. This continuity should strengthen your brand’s presence.
If you don’t already have a stunning business logo, check out Obelro’s Logo Maker or Shopify’s Hatchful. These are free tools that can help you make a professional-looking logo in only a few minutes.
In order to edit your Instagram profile picture, simply go to your profile, select “Edit Profile” and then tap “Change Profile Picture.”
Your photo needs to be at least 100px by 110px. Although, for the best results, your Instagram profile picture dimensions should be 180px by 180px.
Another thing you should’ve noticed by now is that Instagram uses circular profile pictures. Luckily, you don’t need to create a circular profile picture yourself, since Instagram will be doing the cropping for you.
Write an Informative and Intriguing Bio
This part is considered prime real estate, and you only have 150 characters to pull this off. Here something you should be aware of: Your Instagram profile bio shouldn’t be about your business. It should be about the customers. Specifically, it should be about what you can do for your customers.
If you wish to keep things simple and effective, simply summarize what you do and how it can benefit the user. Then include a call-to-action.
Headspace has a good example of this:
- A summary of what they do and the key benefit: “Headspace is meditation made simple.”
- The key benefit explained: “Learn to meditate whenever you want, wherever you are, in just a few minutes a day.
- Finish with a call-to-action: “Download the app
It’s nothing impressive, but simply copywriting formulas such as these can work extremely well.
Why should you use Call to Action buttons?
Simply put, let’s get straight to the facts. According to statistics, it’s been revealed that nearly 200 million daily active Instagram users visit a business profile each day.
Additionally, around 150 million Instagram users have daily conversations with businesses who have a stellar call to action, well-constructed business profile, and business message response time.
Subsequently, it’s quite evident that customers conduct their own research before deciding to purchase an item from a business. This essentially means by integrating a call to action on your business profile posts you are far more likely to convert any curious customer about your business, into a sale.
In addition to making sales, by placing a call to action, it encourages your customers to take the first step. Instead of having to chase after potential customers, it’s much easier to deal with matters when the customers are reaching out to you. This can be considered a win-win situation for both sides.
Is it worth adding a call to action button?
In all honesty, absolutely. A call to action is imperative for any business transaction to be conducting on Instagram.
By having a call to action button appear right in the face of your customer you’ve made it convenient for both you and the consumer to purchase your products or get in contact with your directly.
All in all, making random posts and uploading meaningless stories will not get you anywhere though. Instead, you should conduct some research and get inside the customer’s mentality.
Try to make it as convenient as possible for your customers and utilize the call the action buttons to help you manage and convert viewers into sales.
Conclusion
Instagram continues to roll out business-friendly features on a regular basis. Each of them has tons of potential to further improve your opportunities.
So as long as you know how to properly utilize them, you can expect them to yield some great results. The action button is no different.
Now that you’ve become aware of how to properly get it up and running, go ahead and make it a part of your Instagram business page. If you decide to take any of these tips into consideration, you may be able to significantly increase your conversions.
At the same time, your followers will be given the chance to interact with your business in a much more seamless and convenient way. This makes it a win-win solution for all parties involved.
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This article was written for Business 2 Community by Hugh Stephens.
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