Facebook Bans Like Gate, What are the Alternatives?

On Nov. 15, 2014, the Facebook ‘Like Gate’ will be a thing of the past.

Facebook quietly mentioned in its Platform Policy that pages can’t make it a requirement to Like a Page to have access to contest, downloadable ebooks and more.

Like Gates usually required the aid of third party apps and were a popular and common method for growing the business page likes in order to access the content.

Here’s what Facebook had to say in a developer blog post:

You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page. This includes offering rewards, or gating apps or app content based on whether or not a person has liked a Page. It remains acceptable to incentivize people to login to your app, checkin at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s 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.

While the ‘Like Gates’ were good for growth on Facebook pages, they sometimes didn’t offer quality connections or people who were truly engaged with the brand.

What’s Next?

Here are some other alternatives to grow your likes:

• 3^rd party apps will still be OK. You can still run a contest or put content on a new tab.
• This will force managers to craft higher quality social media content to get people to Like the page
• Facebook Ads will become an even stronger force for acquiring new Likes for Facebook pages
• An important question to ask is if Likes will even be important at all anymore? With the Facebook algorithm change last year, the focus has been more about engagement reach versus followers. It’s important to see if your content is getting impressions.

The removal of the like gate will go into effect Nov. 5^th.

What do you think about the change coming to Facebook?

Work Cited

Facebook is demolishing the like gate, 8/8/2014.  Inside Facebook. Justin Lafferty

Facebook Bans The “Like Gate;” Pages Have 90 Days To Comply, 8/8/2014. Marketing Land. Martin Beck