Facebook Like Gate No Longer Permitted

As of 5 November 2014, Facebook no longer allows apps installed on your Facebook page to incentivize people to like your page.  What does that mean?

You would have seen the huge number of giveaways on Facebook that asked you to like numerous Facebook pages in order to enter to win the prize/s.  Under the updated Facebook policy this is no longer acceptable, you can’t ask people to like your Facebook page or another Facebook page in order to enter a promotion or giveaway.

This is how Facebook made the announcement about the change back in August:

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.

If you have been using this form of promotion to grow your liker numbers on your Page you will now need to be more creative moving forward.  I personally, don’t think this is a bad thing.  In actual fact I think it is great because it will force Page Owners to come up with better ways to get more likers to their page but remember,  you don’t just want the numbers.  You want those likes to be from people that are genuinely interested in your business and what you offer and are going to contribute in some way to your page.

This change also means that you can’t “like gate” an app installed on your Facebook page.  For example in the past, a page may have had something like a coupon or free download available on their Facebook page within an app but the only way to see that content was by liking the page.  This is no longer acceptable.  The content must be made viewable to everyone whether they like your Facebook page or not.

While having a good number of followers on Facebook and other social media platforms is great please remember that the ultimate goal is to drive potential customers to your website where you can collect their information and communicate with them at any time you choose.  You ultimately have no control over the various social media platforms so you don’t want to be relying on them for the success of your business.  Keep this in mind at all times when you are putting together your online marketing strategy.

I would love to hear from you.  Are you disappointed with these changes and have you had to change your marketing strategy?  Let me know in the comments below.