Facebook Marketing: Creating a Call to Action with Timeline Apps
Posted by Allison Semancik on Sat, Mar 10, 2012
One of the best features of the new Facebook timeline for pages are the application icons. These little square images appear right below the cover photo.
The application icons link to any tabs (now called Timeline apps) you have set up. For example, if you have a default landing tab application, it would appear here. On the Idea Sprouts page, I have applications like NetworkedBlogs, Twitter and About.Me. On the soon to be retired Facebook pages, these appear below the profile picture on the left side as show below.
With Timeline, you’ll only be able to show 3 of these applications BUT you can create the application icon – a real bonus.
The goal with the application icons is to turn them into calls to action (Tweet this tip). For instance, on the Idea Sprouts page, I have a default landing tab that invites people to download my free ebook, 50 Facebook Marketing Ideas.
For the application icon, I put the name of the ebook and below it in text “Free Ebook” – effectively turning this into a call to action.
So what do want to people to get out of your Facebook page? Here are some ideas:
- Download a free ebook or whitepaper
- Signup for an email newsletter
- Register for webinars
- Special offer or coupon
When brainstorming your Facebook marketing ideas, think of how you can create an eye catching application icon and what text to put below it. Keep in mind that you are limited to a small image of 111 x 74 and only 14 characters of the text will show up (you can make this longer, but it will only appear if you hover over the icon.)
Here are a few examples of what businesses are doing with these application icons.
Hubspot highlights their Inbound Marketing Summit event, customer case studies and a free ebook.
Social Media expert, Mari Smith shares a free chapter from her new book and highlights her course and an upcoming webinar.
Social Fresh keeps it clean, showing off their "Likes" and encouraging people to subscribe to their updates and watch their videos.
John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing also chose to highlight his "Likes", a free ebook and invite people to join his network.
How can you take advantage of these little images to get people to take action on your Facebook page?
Share your thoughts below or if you have a page you'd love to show off, please post below.
