How to Add a Button to a Facebook Post

Want to turn idle scrollers into active customers? Adding a clickable button to your Facebook posts is a direct and powerful way to guide your audience toward a specific action. This guide will walk you through the exact methods to add call-to-action buttons to your posts, explaining what's possible with organic content and what requires a bit of ad spend. We'll cover the simple, automatic way with link posts and the more powerful, customizable options available through Facebook's backend tools.

Why Add a Button to Your Facebook Post?

Before we get into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." A Facebook post without a clear call to action is like a beautiful storefront with no door. It might look nice, but it doesn't invite anyone inside. CTA buttons fix this by giving your audience a clear, simple next step.

Here's what a good CTA button can do for you:

• Increase Click-Through Rates (CTR): A brightly colored, action-oriented button is far more noticeable and enticing than a simple hyperlink buried in text. It draws the eye and encourages a click.
• Improve User Experience: Buttons tell people exactly what will happen when they click. "Shop Now," "Learn More," or "Sign Up" removes guesswork, making it easier for users to interact with your brand in the way you intend.
• Drive Specific Goals: Whether you want to generate leads, sell products, increase newsletter subscribers, or drive traffic to a new blog post, a button directs all a post's energy toward that one goal.
• Enhance Tracking and Analytics: When using Facebook Ads tools, CTA buttons provide clean Clicks (Link) and CTR (Link Click-Through Rate) metrics, making it easy to see exactly how many people took the desired action from a specific post.

In short, a button transforms a passive piece of content into an engine for business growth, one click at a time.

The Two Main Ways to Add a Button on Facebook

This is where most of the confusion online comes from. Years ago, Facebook experimented with different types of buttons on organic posts, but those features have since been changed or removed. Today, there are really two main methods for getting a button on your post, each with different levels of control.

Method 1: The "Automatic" Button from Link Previews (Organic Posts)

This is the simplest and most common way to add a button to a standard, non-promoted Facebook Page post. The catch? You don't have direct control over the button's text. Instead, Facebook generates a clickable area based on the link you share.

Whenever you paste a URL into a new post, Facebook's crawler visits the webpage to pull information for a "link preview." This preview typically includes a title, a description, and an image from the page. This entire preview box becomes one large, clickable button that directs users to the URL. For many well-designed websites, Facebook might generate a small button within the preview with generic text like "Learn More."

Here's how to do it step-by-step:

Step 1: Create a New Post on Your Facebook Page

Navigate to your business's Facebook Page and click "Create post."

Step 2: Paste Your URL

In the text box, paste the full URL you want to direct your audience to. This could be a product page, a blog post, a sign-up form, or your homepage.

Step 3: Wait for the Link Preview to Appear

Give Facebook a few seconds to process the link. It will automatically generate a preview box below your text. This box will display the page's "OG Image" (Open Graph image), title, and a snippet of its meta description.

Step 4: Customize Your Post Copy

Once the preview appears, you can actually delete the URL from the text box if you want a cleaner look. The preview will remain. Now, write engaging copy above the preview to give context and encourage people to click. Tell them what they'll get by clicking - whether it's an informative article, a great deal, or a helpful guide.

Your finished post might look something like this:

Post-copy text goes here, explaining the benefits. ↓
[Large Image + Title + Description - The Clickable Link Preview]

While this method gives you a large, clickable area that functions as a button, remember that you cannot customize the CTA text that Facebook sometimes generates. The text is pulled from the website's code or defaults to something safe like the domain name.

Method 2: Using Facebook Ads Manager for Fully Customizable CTA Buttons (Paid Posts)

If you want a specific, customizable button like "Shop Now," "Download," or "Subscribe," you'll need to use Facebook Ads Manager. This is the only reliable way to attach a dedicated call-to-action button to a post.

This doesn't mean you need a massive ad budget. You can "promote" or "boost" a post for as little as a few dollars a day to get access to this feature. This adds the button appearance and shows the post to a wider audience.

Here's the full walkthrough:

Step 1: Go to Facebook Ads Manager

You can access Ads Manager through your Business Suite or by going directly to adsmanager.facebook.com.

Step 2: Click "Create" to Start a New Campaign

This opens a new campaign creation window. First, you'll need to choose a campaign objective. The objective you select helps determine which CTA buttons will be available to you later.

• For driving clicks to a website, choose Traffic.
• For getting sign-ups or downloads, choose Leads.
• For selling products from a catalog, choose Sales.
• For encouraging comments, messages, or shares, choose Engagement.

For this example, let's select "Traffic," as it's the most common use case.

Step 3: Set Up Your Campaign and Ad Set

Give your campaign a name and move to the "Ad Set" level. This is where you'll define your budget, schedule, target audience (location, age, interests), and where your ad will be shown (placements). We recommend keeping "Advantage+ placements" selected at first, which lets Facebook automatically show your post where it's most likely to perform well.

Step 4: Create Your Ad and Add the Button

Now, at the "Ad" level, it's time to build the post itself.

1. Ad Setup: Choose "Create ad." Under "Format," select "Single image or video."
2. Ad Creative: Upload the photo or video you want to use. You'll also write your "Primary Text" here, which is the main post copy your audience will see.
3. Destination: Add the Website URL where you want the button to send people.
4. The Important Part: Call to Action: Below the URL field, you'll see a dropdown menu labeled "Call to Action." This is it! Click on it, and you'll see a list of available buttons.

Typical CTA options include:

• Learn More
• Shop Now
• Sign Up
• Download
• Book Now
• Contact Us
• Subscribe
• Listen Now
• Watch More
• Apply Now
• Get Offer
• Request Time

Select the button that most accurately describes the action you want users to take. The preview on the right will update in real-time to show you how your post will look with the button included.

Step 5: Publish Your Ad

Once you're happy with your post copy, visual, and CTA button, click the green "Publish" button. Your ad will go into review, and once approved, it will look like a native Facebook post in the feed but with your powerful, custom call-to-action button attached.

What About the "Get Messages" Button?

You may remember seeing an option to add a "Send Message" button to organic posts. This specific feature's accessibility has changed over the years. While it is sometimes unavailable for organic posts, it is a primary feature for specific types of ads.

The best way to consistently use a "Send Message" button is to create an ad with the Engagement objective and choose "Messenger" as the conversion location. This will automatically add a prominent "Send Message" button to your post, encouraging direct conversations with your audience.

Best Practices for Using CTA Buttons

Simply adding a button isn't enough. To make it truly effective, follow these tips:

• Match the Button to the Goal: Don't pair confusing messages. A button that says "Shop Now" should lead to a product page, not a blog post. A "Download" button should lead directly to a resource, not a generic homepage. Clarity is king.
• Support the CTA With Your Copy: Your post's text should build excitement or create context for the button. Tell people why they should click. What benefit will they gain by "Learning More" or "Signing Up"?
• Use Eye-Catching Visuals: The image or video in your post has one job: stop the scroll. If people don't pause to look at your visual, they'll never even see your button. Invest in high-quality, vibrant creative that captures attention.
• Optimize Your Landing Page: A great ad ends in disappointment if the landing page is slow, confusing, or doesn't deliver on the promise of the CTA. Make sure the linked page is mobile-friendly and continues the user's journey seamlessly.

Final Thoughts

Incorporating a compelling call-to-action button is one of the most effective ways to convert engagement into tangible results like traffic, leads, or sales. While organic link posts provide a broad clickable area, using Facebook Ads Manager gives you the precise control to add a perfectly worded CTA button aligned with your campaign goal.

Of course, creating compelling content and tracking call-to-action data is just one piece of a full social media strategy. It can become a real chore to plan, schedule, and analyze everything across different networks. That's why we built Postbase. To help plan your content strategy on a visual calendar, customize and schedule posts for all your platforms at once, and see what's working with clean analytics - all from one modern, fast dashboard.