Facebook “Like Gating” is the practice of giving people and incentive to like your company’s Facebook page. Examples of “Like Gating” include:

• requiring people to like your page in order to get discount coupon or enter a contest, or

• requiring people to like your page to access certain content on your Facebook page.

Many marketers do this because it is a quick and easy way to gain likes. The problem is that people are liking company pages that they are not actual fans of just to get the discount or contest entry. This causes two problems:

1. People are getting updates in their Facebook news feed from companies they don’t really care about.

2. Companies end up with Likes from people who are not really their target market.

To make the most of the time you spend marketing your business on social media, it is helpful to write a social media strategy. Here's how you can create a quick social media strategy to organize your marketing efforts.

1. Write a summary of your brand image. Understanding your brand may seem like a given; and it is. When developing any kind of strategy it’s important to think about your brand image so that your messages stay consistent. For social media specifically, you are going to develop so many small messages that there will be a high vulnerability for misrepresentation.