Today WTVJ became the second Miami TV station to reach 100,000 likes on their Facebook page, third when you include WPEC in Palm Beach.

Like TV ratings, collecting Facebook likes has become a competition between the stations as they try not just to connect with viewers who spend a lot of time on the social network, but also with those who do not watch as much local news anymore. Using giveaways is the most popular way of attracting likes, a couple of years ago Channel 6 went full-bore and gave away iPads almost every day of the week, while encouraging people to tune the station’s morning newscast to see if they had won. That tactic along with more engaging posts that nudge readers to tap the share button seems to be paying off as so called engagement rates are up.

Though whether these tactics would work long-term is still not known, especially now that page posts reach only about 1-5% of their audience, and Facebook steering bigger brands into spending money to have their posts seen by more people.