Awhile back I was visiting a favorite ice-cream shop in Greenwood, IN called "Mrs. Curl" that my family and I really enjoy. There was a sign up in the window asking people to vote for them in a local contest that one of the news agencies puts on every year. As you can see from the image, in order for me to vote for them I would need to enter a very long URL. Being that was out at their location, I was more than likely going to have to do this from my phone, which would add another layer of challenge to the request. In this case, my first thought was to ask myself "Why wouldn't they use a URL shortening service like bit.ly?" The answer would probably have been that nobody there even knew what bit.ly was in the first place. If they'd used something like bit.ly the URL someone would have needed to immediately type into their phone would have been http://bit.ly/1Calux8 instead of http://theindyalist.cityvoter.com/best/ice-cream-shop/specialty-food-and-drink/indianapolis. Or, they could have even customized the URL to http://bit.ly/MrsCurlAlist. Or, they could have even used a big QR code that would have directed people to vote for them by scanning it with their phone. 
It's sad to say but the majority of society would really always prefer to take the easy way out of a situation. That's perhaps even more true for consumers. As a business, we need to try to identify and alleviate the issues our customers face when doing business with us. The same is true for trying to get them involved with our brands on social media.
Have you really thought about the meaning and power of a "Like" on Facebook or getting someone to follow you on Twitter? Sure it's a great thing to have, more likes and more followers, but when you think about it, it didn't take much effort or commitment from your customer or fan. They were more than likely sitting down and used one finger to click a button on their mouse. Done!
The question though is are they engaged with you and your brand more than that?
Getting customer reviews for your business can be a huge win. That takes significantly more effort on your customer's part than just clicking a mouse button. You need them to go to your website, hopefully within a reasonable amount of time of engaging with you for a reason to even initiate a review, and then write a review for your services. Do they know where to go to leave a review? Would you rather them figure it out for themselves or would you rather direct them to a few of your preferred places for getting a review? Oh, and in case you were wondering, there's other reasons to get customer reviews as well. Remember, before the Internet you'd normally want to hear this kind of feedback anyway. It will either let you know you're doing a good job and you can commend your employees, or you'll find out areas you can improve and your staff may need training.
The point is, whatever you want your customer to do, think about what it takes for them to accomplish that task and try to eliminate any challenges you can. Make it easy, and you may just get them to do something a little more intensive than clicking their mouse on your website.
The results are in for the Indy A-List Voting, and Mrs. Curl finished in the Top 5. It may not have mattered because I'm not sure how close the voting was, but if they'd made it a little simpler for their customers, perhaps they could have pulled out the win!
