A recent Facebook announcement may affect how your business Page gets new Likes. Starting November 5th, 2014, businesses will no longer be able to ask for Page Likes in connection with a contest or giveaway. Here is how the new guidelines will function according to Hashdeep Singh, on Facebook’s developer’s blog:
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.
This won’t affect asking for Likes on a picture or post, those options are safe for now, but using a “Like-gate” for entry into an app or requiring a Page Like to enter a contest is now banned. What happens if you already have a Like-gate? Existing apps that use this method will continue to function with this feature until the November 5th deadline. Any new apps created now or moving forward simply won’t have that functionality. If you run your contest directly on your newsfeed, make certain that you aren’t asking anyone to Like your Page as a way to enter a contest or win a Prize. Again, asking for post Likes is still acceptable and are a great way to introduce people to your business to those who may not have heard about you. We’ve got a free download with great information on running a successful contest.
Over the past two years, Facebook has been making it increasingly difficult for business Pages to reach people who have Liked their Page. This is largely due to a stronger push towards paid advertising on Facebook. Smile Savvy helps to manage nearly 200 Facebook accounts for Pediatric Dentists, so reduced enagegment rates have been a challenge for our social media team and our customers. However, the potential reach along with a relatively high ROI still makes Facebook an obvious choice for pediatric dentists who want to engage current patients or find new ones. To make Facebook even more effective, we are currently testing ways to use low cost, promoted (paid) posts to broaden the post reach of our customers. Subscribe to our blog by using the form on this page to stay “in the know” about upcoming announcements.
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