Facebook Is Putting An End To The “Like Gate”

In a previously announced move, Facebook will be putting an end to “like gating” as of today, November 5th, thereby preventing marketers from using “likes” as the price of entry to contests or content.

Facebook first announced this change in August with the intention of ensuring that users choose to like pages because they truly want to be connected to the associated business or brand, as opposed to being enticed by what Facebook calls “artificial incentives.”

Many marketers have already stopped utilizing the like gate approach, as it has become clearer over time that these contests can often appeal to the wrong customer base, which doesn’t actually help a brand in expanding its audience. Boosting the number of likes for your business without being certain that there is an actual interest from the users can take a lot of time without providing effective results. Working on true engagement has become the more popular approach for marketers in recent times.

However, for those who still wish to gain likes as the price for contests or content, this option is now gone.

“You must not incentivize people to use social plugins or to like a Page,” wrote Facebook in its August announcement. “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, check-in at a place or enter a promotion on your app’s Page. We believe this update will benefit people and advertisers alike.”

Emeric Ernoult, CEO of social media marketing platform AgoraPulse, agrees that like gating is an ineffective method for marketers. “It was too easy to make mistakes,” he said. “There have been too many people doing things that were actually hurting them but they didn’t realize it.”

However, not everyone agrees with this move by the social media giant, with some claiming that Facebook’s true motive is to force advertising on businesses that are trying build a larger audience on the network. Nathan Latka, CEO of Heyo, a company that creates promotional campaign applications for Facebook pages, still feels that like gating can be an effective method when it is done correctly. “The fact is they are a public company and have shareholders to answer to,” he said. “If they can force people into paying for likes instead of using like gates, they’ll do it. That’s the motive here.”

Regardless of the position of marketers, the change is being made. Fortunately, the transition will be seamless for businesses. Page owners that are running like-gate campaigns don’t have to do anything to turn them off. Once the change has been made by Facebook, content that was previously hidden to those who haven’t liked a page will be displayed to anyone who visits the tab on the page. It may be advisable to adjust the messaging within the displayed content if you are still hoping to increase the likes on your page.

In general, the value of the like has been seen as diminishing in recent times, so this change may not prove to be detrimental to many, if any, businesses. Finding engaging methods to get users to provide registration data, such as an email address that can be used either for direct messaging or for retargeting with Facebook advertising, is seen by many to be the most effective way to broaden the reach of a brand via the social network.