Facebook Just Killed Like-Gating

Well, it was fun while it lasted… But as of November 5, 2014, Facebook is banning the much-loved practice of “like-gating.”  No more forcing people to “like” your page to win a prize pack.  Now they’ll just have to like you because of your winning personality (also your awesome customer service and great products).

So what CAN you require users to do in order to enter a contest. Here are a few ideas:

1) You can have them subscribe to your blog.  You don’t have a blog?  Maybe now is a good time to think about whether it makes sense for your brand. While it takes great content that is interesting to your audience and goes beyond your product offerings and pure marketing messaging, it can be a very effective communications channel. Other great reasons to have a blog is to utilize as a means to reach your customers in times of crisis and also to enhance your visibility on search engines which are constantly crawling for new content.

2) You can still “Like-gate” on other sites, including Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

3)  Ask for an e-mail address to build your customer database.  Whether for newsletters, new product announcements, upcoming events or partner offers, it’s important that companies build a customer database.

Wanna learn more? E-mail us at [email protected] and ask for a social media consultation.