If you’re reading this blog post, you’re probably wondering why the weird title. And no, I’m not going to go all clickbait (pulling a bait and switch) on you and talk about something unrelated. But if you use Facebook for your business, you’ll shortly understand the blog post title’s significance other than to grab your attention.

Effective November 5th, Facebook is banning like gates and the ability to force visitors to “Like” a page in order to get access from a tab’s content.

Per Facebook’s developer blog page:
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 ran contests or promotions in exchange for Facebook ‘Likes’ in the past, maybe it’s time to re-think how your approaching the use of social media. One way to push forward? Why not continue to run contests but – and this is important – not ask for likes. It stands to reason that brands can still create strong calls to action to their audience and give them reasons to organically become a fan.

Still reading this blog post? Thanks. And no, I don’t need you to ‘Like’ me to read any of my future blog posts.