Musicians and many an entity with social media presence may find its approach altered as part of Facebook's new regulations that were announced last week, according to Clickz.com: "Like-Gating," or luring users into "liking" your page by offering prizes or rewards, will no longer be allowed on the site.
The switch has been a long time coming, announced as early as August, but now it's official. If your band is trying to draw in fans by offering a free download or similar goodie, you could risk being removed from the site.
Jasmine Sander, the CEO of Agent-cy, the whole process of "buying" likes wasn't worth much to companies anyhow.
"Social media is meant for real relationship development," she told Clickz. "It is analogous to the over-sale at retail not working, whereas educating the consumer, even providing free trials or test drives, has a much higher percentage of making the cut."
That may be true for Nike, but entities such as bands or musical acts actually have something to gain from sheer numbers, even if a majority of those fans don't pay much attention the to group's every post. As social media becomes bigger and bigger (and album sales become smaller and smaller), labels and other industry bodies look more and more on what kind of influence an act has via social media, what kind of outreach it has. That's why say, if your correspondent's grindcore band Unqualified Scum offers a free download of our mixtape for a like, it hopefully increases the odds that Southern Lord notices and increases the chances it might reach out.
The best bet is to do the ol' Radiohead "Pay What You Will." Offer that free download but put emphasis on your post that a "like" would be an honorable payment. You won't be tying their hands and they won't feel bogged down by the request.
