3 CEOs share their best alternative to using a Facebook like-gate

Facebook recently announced they were banning the use of like-gating on Facebook Pages starting November 5, 2014.

This was a shock for a lot of businesses that have a Facebook Page because it meant they needed to make changes to their Facebook marketing strategy and find new ways to get people to like their Facebook Page.

While this affected businesses that manage a Facebook Page, how did it affect companies that specialize in tools to help you create Facebook landing pages?

I put together a list of alternatives to using a like-gate to attract new likes on your Facebook Page.

But I wanted to hear from the companies that create Facebook landing page tools to find out what changes they would make to help attract new likes or fans to their Facebook Pages.

To help you understand their approach to like-gating on Facebook, I gathered three of the top companies and asked them what they would do differently now that you won’t be allowed to use like-gating on Facebook landing pages.

Moving away from like-gating

While the announcement that like-gating was dead may come as a bit of a shock to businesses, this didn’t come as a surprise to many of the landing page companies.

Many of them were already moving beyond just offering tools to create Facebook landing pages.

For example, Shortstack recently launched a new campaign builder to help you go beyond just creating landing pages on Facebook.

They now allow you to build campaigns to use anywhere that can help you grow your fanbase.

Why like-gating isn’t a big deal

Earlier this year, Facebook launched a redesign of Facebook Pages.

When this initially launched, Facebook landing pages were initially removed from the new redesign and re-added later.

This was a clear indicator that Facebook might be making further changes to landing pages.

Couple that with the fact that Facebook has been making subtle changes such as removing the ability to set a default landing page over the past few years and you can clearly see that like-gating was bound to go away sooner or later.

So what are the CEO’s who create social media tools to help you create Facebook landing pages, contests, and promotions doing instead of using a like-gate? Let’s find out.

3 CEO’s share their best Facebook like-gate advice

Continue reading 3 CEOs share their best alternative to using a Facebook like-gate

Facebook bans like-gating – Try these 5 Facebook like-gate alternatives instead

Have you heard the news? As of November 5, 2014, Facebook like-gates are dead. If you blinked, you probably missed it because it was buried at the bottom of their latest list of changes to their API and SDKs. The statement went something like this:

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.

Because the changes made to like-gates affects your Facebook marketing, I put together a list of Facebook like-gate alternatives to help you continue to grow your Facebook Page likes without like-gates.

What is like-gating or fan-gating?

If you use tools like Shortstack, Tabsite, or Heyo or other landing page alternatives to show different types of content to fans and non-fans on your Facebook Page, you were using a feature known as a like-gate (or a fan-gate).

Examples of like-gating

Some examples of like-gates include:

  • Liking a Facebook Page to enter a contest
  • Providing coupons or promo codes once someone likes your Facebook Page
  • Liking a Facebook Page in order to watch a video
  • Liking a Facebook Page to download a PDF or eBook

If you currently use like-gates on your Facebook Page, they will continue to work until November 5. After that date, if you still have them on your Facebook Page, people will be able to access the content without liking your page. No new landing pages will be allowed to use the like-gate feature.

Why Facebook banned like-gating

So why did Facebook ban like-gating? They explained their reasoning further down the article.

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.

When you think about it, like-gating on Facebook Pages has been slowly dying. They were popular back in 2010, but we have gotten a lot smarter as marketers. When Facebook launched a Facebook Page redesign earlier this year, landing page tabs were also removed and then re-added at the last minute. For me, this signaled that Facebook was putting less of an emphasis on landing pages.

Why like-gates don’t matter

While like-gates helped grow your Facebook Page likes, they really didn’t matter. This was because a lot of Facebook Pages were not growing them the right way. Previously, when you used a like-gate to have someone like your Facebook Page to enter a contest, a lot of times you were not bringing in the right types of fans on your page. In most cases, people liked your page just so they could enter a contest or win a prize. They were not interested in the content your page was going to share. By eliminating these gimmicks, this should help improve your Facebook experience in the following ways:

  • Users will see more of the content they want to see in their news feed
  • Advertisers can use Facebook Ads to improve their targeting
  • Businesses can improve the focus of their Facebook Pages

Now that you know about changes to like-gates and how they will affect your Facebook marketing tactics, I wanted to share a list of Facebook like-gate alternatives to help you bring in more quality Facebook Page likes.

5 Facebook like-gate alternatives

Continue reading Facebook bans like-gating – Try these 5 Facebook like-gate alternatives instead

How to add a menu to your Facebook Page – Video

Do you run a restaurant? Would you like to learn how to add a menu to your Facebook Page to display your restaurant’s menu to customers? 

Currently, there are a number of landing page tools such as Shortstack, or Tabsite that you can use to add a menu to your Facebook Page.

If you don’t want to use another tool, Facebook now let’s restaurants and cafes include a menu on their Facebook Page without using any extra tools.

Adding a menu to a Facebook Page
Example of a menu on a Facebook Page.

To add a menu to your restaurant’s Facebook Page, follow these instructions.

How to add a menu to your facebook page

Continue reading How to add a menu to your Facebook Page – Video

Facebook landing page ideas for Facebook Pages with Tabsite co-founder, Mike Gingerich

Tabsite co-founder, Mike Gingerich

This interview with Mike Gingerich, co-founder of Tabsite, is the eleventh in an ongoing series of podcasts with individuals and businesses doing amazing things in social media marketing and blogging.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Tabsite, it is a company that provides digital tools for creating Facebook landing pages, Instagram contests, social apps, giveaways, and more.

While there are thousands of examples of Facebook landing pages out there, it can be difficult to know which ones you should choose for your own Facebook landing pages.

On this episode, Mike and I discuss Facebook landing page ideas along with suggestions on the types of Facebook landing page tabs you want to include on your Facebook Page.

Facebook landing page ideas - Testimonials
Facebook landing page ideas – Testimonials and reviews.

In this episode, here is what we cover: Continue reading Facebook landing page ideas for Facebook Pages with Tabsite co-founder, Mike Gingerich

10 Wildfire Alternatives for Facebook Page Apps

Wildfire Alternatives

Earlier this week, Wildfire, a social media marketing software for creating Facebook Page Apps and promotions made a huge announcement about the types of businesses they plan to support. They’re switching from small businesses to enterprise only ones.  While this makes sense because of the direction they’re taking, it also rubs a lot of people the wrong way. If you’re someone who was considering using Wildfire, we’ve compiled 10 Wildfire alternatives for creating Facebook Page promotions.

While this is great news for Wildfire because it will let them focus more on working with high-end businesses, it leaves a lot of businesses who don’t have $2,500 to spend per month on running Facebook Page app promotions left out.

Fortunately, there are a lot of Wildfire alternatives that won’t cost you too much to use for your business. Let’s review a few of the Wildfire alternatives you should consider.

10 Wildfire alternatives for Facebook Page Applications

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5 FREE Facebook landing page creation tools

With the new Facebook Pages launching in just a few weeks, is your Facebook Page ready? For those of you who need a quick rundown on the new features, be sure to check out my YouTube playlist where I have put together detailed videos covering each new Facebook Page feature. One feature that I’m sure a number of you are going to be interested in are custom landing pages.  Although Facebook has done away with the ability to set a dedicated landing page for non-fans to land on, Facebook Page users will be happy to know that landing pages have increased in size. Previously, landing pages were just 510 px. Now, they have increased significantly to 810 px. This means lots more real estate to engage with fans!

For those of you who don’t want to spend time learning how to write HTML code or designing graphics, here are 5 FREE Facebook landing page creation tools to help you build better landing pages to connect with current fans and to engage with new ones.

Continue reading 5 FREE Facebook landing page creation tools