For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Gerber, the baby food company, is currently running an excellent example of a contest using Facebook’s Like Gate feature.
Go here to check it out: https://www.facebook.com/Gerber?sk=app_586462271392312
When you first arrive, if you haven’t yet Liked Gerber, you find a grayed out page, showing content that if you’ve got a baby, you’ll want to be able to click to access:

• You could win $50,000
• and an Enter now button

What parent out there doesn’t feel that even if their child isn’t absolutely the most adorable kid in the world, that they’re at least in the top 3?)

and down below, the view gallery button

Of course, clicking on any of those buttons does nothing, until you recognize that the big bold colorful Like Us To Get Started graphic means that you have to like them to participate!
This contest yields several key learnings for anyone wanting to increase their Facebook likes:

1. Like gates work
2. Gray out the page, so it’s clear that the user has to do something to get access, then let them know they need to like you to participate
3. Present a compelling button in the grayed out section above the fold, that the visitor will WANT to click on, but can’t
4. Present multiple compelling buttons in the grayed out section to increase the visitor’s desire to Like you so they can get access

Other Learnings

In addition to the Like Gate examples, Gerber is also doing other things we can learn from including:
1. Offering an unchecked optin offer to register for their Start Healthy, Stay Healthy Resource Center to gather targeted names of visitors (giving benefits only parents would want, rather than giving away something that everyone would want, like optin to get a chance to win an iPad, etc. They do offer the iPad as a prize in their contest, but the resource center names will most likely be the real, valuable optins from this promotion.)

2. Offering a voting option, which will cause entrants to promote their child’s picture through Facebook and other social media properties, bringing additional traffic to the promotion during the contest period.
Well done Gerber!
Before you ask. “Like gating,” sometimes called “friend gating” is available in many of the different Facebook Page Building programs out there (not all, though, so check before you invest) and NO, you cannot use a Like Gate as your Facebook Page. It’s only an app, meaning that it’s one of the pages you can only get to by clicking one of the boxes below your Cover Image. However, you can send traffic directly to your like gate page through advertising, links on Facebook and off, and email.
What other learnings do you get from their contest? What do you think they could have done better? Let us know by leaving a comment below, and don’t forget to Like, Share, Tweet, +1, Tumble and Pin this post!
The Gerber brand name and trademarked imagery are trademarks of the Gerber Products Company.

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