Ad agencies are spending more and more time developing for Facebook — it’s where the people are, so it’s where our clients need to be.  There are plenty of strategic reasons why brands and advertisers are drawn to it: the sheer volume of the population, the inherent sociability of the medium, the real-time interaction with consumers, the immediate feedback on new campaigns and the analytic capability to track every click and second spent.  However, in order to put some kind of measurable metric around the health of these social media strategies, somewhere along the line we decided that Likes are the KPI of choice — more Likes equals more success. Soon, collecting as many fans as possible became a sub-goal of every project. Then some clever person figured out how to game the system by playing with the Facebook API and Fan-Gating was born.

Fan-Gating is the now common practice to present a Pre-Like page when users first visit a brand’s site — a page that exists for no other reason than to tell new users they have to Like the brand before the real content is unlocked and they’re able to experience what they’ve already been forced to tell their entire network they’re a fan of.  This is the Fan-Gate — a barrier either demanding or pleading for a Like before it’ll allow the user to pass.  And because agencies often have a mandate to increase Likes and broaden the fanbase, and because everyone else is doing it, most agencies see nothing wrong with it.  

I don’t understand how we let things got this far.  Clients are devoting time and money to the content being created.  They’re investing in prizes and actors and community managers to keep the conversation going.   There should be as few barriers as possible between content and consumer (a Facebook account is itself a barrier, but that’s a rant for another day).  People who are forced to Like a brand before they’re allowed to interact with it aren’t Liking it because they actually Like it.  They’re Liking it because they have to.  It’s a toll.  A temporary roadblock that’s easily detoured and can easily be reversed as soon as they’ve done whatever it was they came for, if they don’t just turn around and leave in the first place.  These Likes haven’t been earned  – they’ve been coerced.  

If this trend continues, the Like itself will be completely devalued.  It’ll be just another button we mindlessly click because we have to.  The Facebook equivalent of an “I agree to the Terms and Conditions” checkbox.  Our industry should be striving to create the kinds of experiences that our users enjoy and seek out and Like because they want to know when the next one is going to happen.  The Like should be akin to applause or a tip — a thank you for a job well done and encouragement to continue.  

It’s not to say we can’t ask people to like us, or include giant flaming arrows pointing to the Like button, we just can’t make it a requirement.

We take pains to make our digital experiences as easy and frustration-free as possible.  If we’re successful, consumers will choose to Like our clients, which opens up the possibility of dialogue and interaction and the development of an ongoing affinity. Then it’s even easier to keep them coming back for more.

Explosive projections on the water. The result is spectacular. The projection features a three-story-tall dribbling, dunking and walking on water Melo, Jordan-branded helicopter and ultimately a live appearance of Melo himself.
This is one of the best projections i have seen – really well done.