Facebook Likegating was already dead (though not everyone got the memo). Now it’s just been officially buried, with Facebook’s latest updates to its Platform Policies:
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.
Likegating — making certain content only available to those who “liked” your Facebook page — was always a questionable practice, especially the way that many marketers misused the arrangement.
Typically, the “incentive” (available only to those who liked a Facebook page) was lukewarm at best (“A 5% discount? Really?“), meaningless at worst (“Welcome, thanks for liking us, we’ll let you know when we have something to talk about“).
Likegating was already dead when Facebook moved away from a tab-based page structure to one focussed on the Newsfeed. As more and more Facebook users migrated to mobile (where they don’t even see pagetabs), Likegating got even deader. Now it’s history, officially declared dead by Facebook.
Likegating is dead. Now what?
Umm — it’s still OK to invite people to like your page. Only now, you have to give them something worth liking you for. Yes, that’s a difficult concept for those who belong to the Interruption School of Marketing, but do your best.