Everyone knows you can’t sell on Facebook and Twitter, right?

Well sure, it’s a little tough to tell your entire story in 140 characters, so that “click to buy” tweet might be met with little success and maybe even a little scorn.

But, if you want to entice folks that are following you in social media to become customers you’ve got to offer up something of value and give them a self motivated reason to act – then you can earn the right to tell them your full story.

The heart and soul of this kind of thinking is the tried and true call to action. Marketers have been using the simple act now, buy now, call now language to get prospects to take all manner of action since the dawn of advertising.

Everyone talks about the need for content these days and while it’s absolutely true you need to think about content that converts and a call to action and special offer is just that.

As Internet use has become the primary way that even local shoppers find information and make buying decisions, it’s become essential for local businesses to integrate local calls to action into their websites and drive people in all the various social outposts to come take advantage of these free offers.

Once you build compelling reasons for people to take action, you can promote those pages in social networks.

It’s easy to think this is something that only restaurants and salons can take advantage of, but with mobile and search use so high almost any type of business, even professional services, can benefit from this idea.

Example calls to action that you can promote in social channels.

Free pass

Let’s say you have a membership type of offer like a gym. Put a “get a free pass” button and form on your site so that you can put a free trial offer in their hands before they come to your door.

A financial planner could use this same approach for a upcoming seminar on investment advice. Or you could allow customers to grab a “bring a friend” pass for an early bird sale.

The easiest way to handle this would be a button that linked to a print friendly web page, but you could also use a form so you could capture a little info and send the pass to their mobile device.

Coupons

People love coupons and coupons certainly drive sales. This is an approach you can update and rotate with all kinds of new products, sales and sample offers.

A restaurant could place a coupon for a free appetizer on Tuesday night, but an insurance sales person could also place a coupon for a free iTunes card with every rate quote.

You can create your own trackable coupons through services such as Coupontank and don’t forget to use the coupon feature on your Google Places page as well as locally focused networks such as Local.com and Craigslist.

And of course, Smart Offers right here from Spring Metrics.

Schedule now

Businesses that run primarily by appointment must start making it easier for today’s mobile enabled customers to book a time on the fly. This means adding appointment booking functionality to your website so that prospects can schedule when it’s convenient for them and see that you have that perfect spot open in two hours when they are free.

There are a number of click to schedule tools like ClickBook, GenBook  and Schedulicity.  Or use the tool set from a service like Agendize that allows you to add call, chat and schedule options all from one tool.

Your marketing efforts require many forms of content – content that builds trust, content that educates and certainly content that converts.