Facebook has announced that beginning on November 5, 2014, Pages will no longer be allowed to force people to “Like” their page in order to participate in incentives or contests.
As a company who offers Social Media Marketing to our clients, often our number one request (and ONLY request) is to increase the number of likes on a business page. So it may seem strange that we are completely for banning Like-Gating since in the past it has been a simple way to hike the number of page Likes. Here’s why.
When we take time to construct a great social media campaign, our goal is not (and your business’ shouldn’t be) to simply get more Likes. Our goal is to entice our potential clients because we have something of value to offer them and engage with them. That means keeping them there.
We have run “successful” contests for clients before and gained thousands of new page likes, only to lose hundreds once the contest is over. We should not want to bribe potential customers. We should want our Facebook Fans to actually LIKE our page in the old-fashioned sense of the word. We want them to want to be there, to stay up to date on our latest promotions and activity. Not because it was simple for them to click a button and try to win free stuff.
Social media is not about the numbers anymore. Social Media is about building relationships with potential customers and nourishing those relationships over time, when hopefully those potential customers become recurring customers.
At the end of the day, when we look at our Facebook fanbase, we want to be able to say “They like me. They REALLY like me!”. Low self esteem? Nah. Just good business building.
What are your thoughts on the Like-Gating ban? Leave us a note in the comments below. And if you Like what we had to say, come on over and Like our Facebook page. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)