Millions of social media posts are created every day, but what makes a good one? Including a powerful social media call to action can turn your content from boring to brilliant. 



First, let’s discuss what call to actions are and then we will discuss how to use them when creating social media content. 

A call to action is telling your reader to act and do something – in effect, what you want them to do next!

By explaining WHY, you can influence people to follow your call to actions. But you need an overall understanding of your audience first. You need to know what you want the reader to do and take into consideration what problem you’re solving for them. 

Example call to actions: 

• Click here
• Visit our website
• Buy now
• Call us
• Get in touch
• Sign up
• Register for a free trial
• Request a quote 
• Book a call
• Books a demo
• Subscribe
• Download our tip sheet

Creating social media content that encourages engagement 

Not using a social media call to action on your posts is a missed opportunity. Social media posts with clear call to actions create a higher engagement than those without. 

But most are generic and don’t make the reader compelled to take this action. So, how do you make your call to actions great for social media? 

Five key tips for creating killer social media call to actions:

1.     Personalise the call to action to your desired reader 

2.     Use strong action words 

3.     Create a sense of urgency 

4.     Clearly explain the benefit to the reader 

5.     Make it easy for them to carry out the action 

Personalise your social media posts to your audience 

All social media posts should speak directly to the reader. Use words like ‘you’ and a conversational message to achieve this. There’s so much noise on social media that you need to do something to grab their attention and make them feel seen. 

Research your chosen target audience to see what makes them tick and speak directly to them. Don’t worry about putting some people off, as appealing to everyone often means you are appealing to no-one. 

Use strong words in your social media call to action

You want to use strong command words that tell the reader exactly what they should do. Then compliment them with strong power words that highlight why they should act. 

For example, phrases such as – 

“Download your proven guide to success in social media”

‘’Sign up for these fool proof tips on creating an email list”

“Get your free copy of our ultimate client lead strategy” 

You want to avoid sounding desperate or tentative. Make each word as direct as you can, without being pushy, for maximum effect with your social media call to actions.

Create a sense of urgency 

Use words like “now”, “limited time offer”, and “not to be missed!” to create a sense of urgency in your social media call to actions. People are more likely to be persuaded to click and act on your call to actions if you can generate a fear of missing out!

Clearly explain the benefit to the reader

Alongside strong words and a sense of urgency, you should clearly explain why the reader should take this action.

What’s in it for them? 

Readers want you to answer this. If they can read your post and think “so what?”, then you need to rephrase it.  To take it one step further, you could explain the benefit using statistics, such as “5x your revenue in two months with our free download”. 

Make it easy for them 

Whichever action you want your reader to take, make sure your social media call to actions are simple and lead directly to a clear landing page, sign up page, or contact you option. 

If they have to jump through hoops to do the thing you’re asking, they will give up and your call to actions will fail. 

Have you ever visited a website and it’s been hard work, so you’ve left? Don’t make that same mistake. And, always make sure you regularly test your links and process.

Call to actions are most effective when they are at the end of the social media posts. Use the main body of the post to set the reader up with the WHY, persuading them of the benefits, THEN hit them with a strong call to action last. 

Using social media call to actions on different platforms 

Each social media platform has their own way of presenting information, so when you are creating social media posts for multiple platforms you need to consider this. 

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok all have their own ways of sharing links, for example. 

Simply saying “click on the link…” could create a challenge if you’re duplicating the content on different platforms, as your reader may need to take different actions to find the link. 

On Instagram, for example, you may have the shopping features and you can tell your audience to “tap to shop”, but on Twitter, you’d have to direct them to a link. 

Being mindful that different social media posts across multiple channels will need different call to actions is important to the success of your posts. 

Get help with creating a social media call to action that engages your reader from The Thinking Cap 

Does the idea of creating social media content give you a headache, even after reading our guide to call to actions? 

Our clients often struggle to come up with new social media posts that will engage with their readers – we love helping them to overcome this. 

We have created a checklist for successful content for you to look at, but at The Thinking Cap, we love to help people directly through our social media training and social media management services. 

Coming soon, we have a blog post explaining how to use call to actions for engagement. This could mean that you’re not asking customers to contact you directly, but to comment on social media posts or sign up for further communications. It goes into detail about applying your call to actions to marketing funnels such as email marketing signup forms, eBook downloads, and creating hashtag trends. 

Whether you want us to create new content for your social media posts, or train you in how to do this consistently, get in touch to master your social media call to action skills.