In June, we wrote ‘Using Like-Gating Facebook Campaigns Can Hurt Your Business’ article. Well now, like-gating will no longer be allowed on Facebook Pages effective November 5, 2014 (and August 7, 2014 for all new apps).
Facebook recently released this statement:
“You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. To ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them, we want people to like Pages because they want to connect and hear from the business, not because of artificial incentives. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.”
Facebook has been slowly moving towards implementing this change that’s geared more towards helping Facebook Pages build a more valuable presence versus a Page just filled with likes.
Businesses Should Get A Better ROI With “Action-Gating” Versus Like-Gating
If your main goal is to acquire a lot of likes and nothing else, then offering an incentive in return for a like has worked well as a Facebook marketing tactic for quite some time. On the other hand, action-gating a campaign (rewarding a user based on submitting data or performing an action besides liking a Page) gives your business the ability to garner something more valuable than a Facebook like — data. For example, at little cost, gathering data such as email addresses while offering incentives in return for this data, you can establish long-term communication with your customers.
Businesses Can Focus On Campaigns Beyond Facebook
Now that like-gating is no longer an option for marketing, businesses can focus on collecting valuable information from more than just their Facebook audience. Sending Facebook Fans, Twitter followers, newsletter subscribers and others to a single, localized Campaign could increase the quality of the information in addition to increasing the volume of information you’ll gather. Create contests and promotions that live outside of Facebook completely.
It’s Ok To Still ASK People To Like Your Page
It’s ok to continue to encourage people to like your page, it’s just that requiring them to like it in order to receive content from you or to participate in a contest for example is no longer allowed. Because people who liked your Page are doing so because they want to interact with your brand, quite possibly, many businesses will see an increase in engagement once the fan base they are building is full of true fans of the brand, not people who only liked the Page for a chance to win a trip.
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