If your business uses Facebook for marketing, you'll want to know about a new tool the social media giant is rolling out. The Facebook Call to Action button option, which launched in mid-December and is being rolled out to Facebook Pages users in the U.S. by the end of this month, is designed to enable you to drive more traffic from Facebook to your website (or anywhere else online that you desire).

Page administrators can select from seven call to action buttons:

  1. Sign Up
  2. Shop Now
  3. Contact Us
  4. Book Now
  5. Use App
  6. Watch Video
  7. Play Game

The predesigned button that you choose will show up at the top left of your Page, next to the "Like" button. (You can see how it looks on Dollar Shave Club's Facebook page.) The shaving product company was given beta access to the new feature, and after using it for three weeks, told Facebook that the Sign Up call to action button improved conversions of new users.

As you can see, the call to action button is not obtrusive, so you'll want to make sure the cover image you use on your Facebook Page doesn't detract from it or make it hard to see. (For instance, you probably don't want a white background right behind it.)

What call to action button should you choose? Facebook has been offering five call to action buttons on its since February 2014. By far the most effective is "Learn More," which gets almost twice as many clicks as the next most popular, "Shop Now" and "Download." "Sign Up" is close behind; "Book Now" is substantially less popular.

"Shop Now" is highly effective in News Feed ads for apparel, home, crafts/hobbies and consumer electronics businesses, but in general, the study suggests that customers prefer calls to action that don't require a lot of commitment, such as learning more about something or downloading information.

As with any call to action button, make sure that the button on your Facebook Page directs users to a specific landing page where they can take the desired action-filling out a form, signing up for a newsletter, etc. You don't want them to end up on your website home page feeling frustrated about where to go next.

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