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Tag: promoted posts

  • Imgur Starts Testing Promoted Posts With Select Businesses

    Imgur is the latest social media service to add promoted posts to its platform, giving advertisers a chance to reach a huge, untapped audience. The company says this is an effort to make sure Imgur is “around for a really long time.”

    It’s not exactly opening up Promoted Posts to the masses just yet. It’s starting by experimenting with promoting certain posts from a select group of businesses.

    In a message to users, the company says in a blog post:

    Some of you are probably thinking, “Oh great, here come the annoying and intrusive internet ads.” But we’re not going to let that happen. While we’ll learn a lot through these initial experiments and haven’t figured out all the details yet, we can tell you that Promoted Posts will be:

    1. Respectful. There will be no pop-ups, auto-playing sound, or timers that make you wait before moving on to the next post. We’ll try not to show you too many of them and we’ll try to make sure you don’t see the same ones over and over again.

    2. Transparent. Promoted Posts will be clearly identified with a blue “Promoted” label in the upper right hand corner.

    3. Relevant. We want Promoted Posts to be just as good if not better than the other posts that have made their way into your stream. We hope they’ll entertain you, inspire you, and help you discover cool things you didn’t know about. We’ve even hired some Imgurians to help make them.

    4. Improving. We’re going to keep working to make Promoted Posts better based on the feedback we get from you.

    While it has long had a policy of no NSFW content, Imgur is cracking down on this more now. The company announced that it now has a team devoted to responding to user reports and enforcing the rules better. It doesn’t say that this is directly related to its advertising initiative, but that seems like a likely reason it would start taking this more seriously now.

    Imgur also just released a new Android app, which should serve to substantially increase the eyeballs on its content, and of course on its coming ads.

    Imgur of course has reddit to thank for much of its popularity. Last year, the company raised a $40 million round of funding, which reddit contributed to.

    “Imgur was originally launched on reddit, and we are honored that the reddit community have chosen Imgur to be their de facto image sharer,” Imgur CEO Alan Schaaf told WebProNews at the time. “Until now there was no formal business relationship but now there is, and we are really excited to work closer with reddit to bring some new exciting mutually beneficial features to members of both communities.”

    He also told us Imgur would be using its funding to grow teams and hiring in engineering, sales, marketing, HR, and finance.

    Image via Imgur

  • With Social Media Advertising, Are People Just Tuning Out?

    Companies often believe they can use social media to increase brand awareness and tap into a new customer base. But, as Gallup findings suggest, consumers are highly adept at tuning out brand-related Facebook and Twitter content. These channels do not motivate prospective customers to consider trying a brand or recommending a brand to others.

    That’s the bad news from a new Gallup report on the “myth” of social media. The good news? Well, there’s not much in the way of good news. In a world of definite decline in organic reach and possible decline in paid reach, it’s best to treat your Facebook ad strategy like a character on Game of Thrones – don’t get too attached, because it’ll probably be dead soon.

    George R.R. Martin hyperbole aside, the takeaway is that engagement begets new engagement. Your fans are your biggest marketers, and it’s their social promotion that’s going to give you the best outcome – not paid advertising.

    Piece of cake, right?

    Let’s back up for a second.

    How has your social media engagement changed in the past few months? Are you worried you’re being tuned out? Let us know in the comments.

    For their report, Gallup asked over 18,000 consumers about how much influence social media has on their “buying decisions,” and the feedback was less than encouraging for social media marketers. A whopping 62 percent said that social media had “no influence at all” on their purchasing habits and 30 percent gave a tepid “some influence” response.

    Only five percent said that social media has a “great deal” of influence on their buying decisions.

    Things get a little better when you just ask millennials (at whom most of this social media advertising is aimed). Only 48 percent said they couldn’t give less of a damn about social media advertising.

    And then there’s this, which shows that preaching to the choir isn’t really that much of a sure thing either –

    “And while many companies correlate the number of fans and followers with their social media success, Gallup also finds that these metrics can be misleading. Of the consumers who reported ‘liking’ or following a company, 34 percent still said that social media had no influence on their purchasing behavior, while 53 percent said they had only some influence. When compared with more traditional forms of social networking, social media initiatives may actually be the least effective method for influencing consumers’ buying.”

    With this rather dismal outlook on paid social media advertising, it’s nice to know that brands can always fall back on authentic-feeling organic posts that engage consumers without the drag of having that “promoted” or “sponsored” label.

    Groan. Of course, we know that’s not true. With Facebook, specifically, organic reach has been on a major slide since late last year. Some have called it Facebook’s panda update, an algorithm change that brands and pages have chastised as a supreme money grab on Facebook’s part. The prevailing theory among those negatively affected by Facebook’s news feed changes is that Facebook slashed organic reach to force pages to pay for exposure.

    Hook ’em with the free promotion for years, yank the rug out, and watch chaos ensue. It’s a devilish plot that Facebook has vehemently denied.

    According to Facebook, the current way in which they deliver content to users is an improvement over how it used to be.

    “We’ve gotten better at showing high-quality content, and we’ve cleaned up News Feed spam. As a result of these changes, News Feed is becoming more engaging, even as the amount of content being shared on Facebook continues to grow,” said Facebook’s Brian Boland in a recent blog post.

    Except there’s a strong argument to be made that Facebook’s algorithms are simply bad at determining quality.

    Even so, Facebook says that all those calls for a completely unfiltered news feed – one that simply shows a real-time stream of all the content from everyone a user follows – are misguided.

    “Several other online feed platforms display all content in real time. But the real-time approach has limitations. People only have so much time to consume stories, and people often miss content that isn’t toward the top when they log on. This means they often do not see the content that’s most valuable to them,” says Boland.

    In Facebook’s mind, that unfiltered feed would “actually cause Pages’ organic reach to decrease further.”

    At least the company is acknowledging a decline in organic reach, right? Small victories.

    Alarming as that is, it may not be the most sinister trend when it comes to your content reaching (or not reaching) your fans’ eyes. A recent report from Flightpath suggests a decline in paid reach.

    Apparently, cost per reach has more than doubled for its clients over the last few months.

    “So what does this mean?” asked Flightpath’s John Lee. “It’s hard to say for certain but it could force companies to dish out even more money to reach the same number of fans. In other words, expect the cost of effective promoted posts to rise (especially as more and more brands start to utilize this advertising option).”

    Let’s pause and reflect on where that leaves us. Your organic reach is swirling down the drain, your paid reach may cost even more to reach the same number of eyes, and people are tuning out your social media marketing anyway.

    In other words, if (and it’s a big if) people even see your content in their feeds, most of them say that it has no effect on them anyway.

    Back to Gallup:

    “The potential of social media is still being debated. Companies are going to have to experiment to figure out what works best with their customers. The process may involve a lot of trial and error, but there is potential in social media that is not directly related to sales revenue. Companies have an opportunity to build communities with their customers in ways they could not before. But to get there, they must first engage their customers through other channels. Regardless of the hype surrounding social media, consumers are still most affected by their offline experiences.”

    So, social media for community building, not just pitches? Once again – it sounds nice, but even ‘community building’ requires visibility. And visibility is, well, uh…

    Is social media advertising (especially on Facebook) even worth it anymore? Even if you can get eyes on your content, are you worried that people have found a way to simply tune it out? Let us know in the comments.

  • Facebook Stops Letting Pages Automatically Promote Posts

    A little over a year ago, Facebook added a feature to Pages to give admins the ability to automatically promote page posts, in order to help the Page get more likes. Now, it seems that Facebook is taking this feature away.

    AllFacebook shares a screenshot it was sent by a reader, which shows a dialogue box telling the Page admin, “To make sure you’re only boosting your most important content, we no longer automatically promote new Page posts.”

    In the comments of that report, another user said they saw the feature going away as early as March 11th, and another said their Facebook Ads rep confirmed that the feature would be removed, noting that it had already been removed from the agency profile dashboards.

    Facebook has made a lot of changes to its Ad platform over the past year, since the feature was first introduced, in an effort to simplify things. In June, the compay announced it was getting rid of over half of its ad units.

    While this move perhaps eliminates some simplicity for advertisers who didn’t want to have to think about what exactly they were promoting day-to-day, it does fall in line with Facebook’s other initiative of enhancing the quality of the content users find in their News Feeds, even if its methods leave a great deal to be desired.

    Earlier this week, Forrester’s principal analyst Nate Elliott blogged about how brands are becoming “disillusioned” with Facebook both on the paid and organic side of things.

    Still, Facebook’s share of the global ad market is growing rapidly.

    Image via Facebook

  • New ‘+Post Ads’ Let Advertisers Reach Millions Of Sites With Google+ Posts

    It was only a matter of time before Google+ got ads, and that time has now come. Google product manager Eran Arkin announced in a Google+ post that the company’s social layer is introducing something called “+Post Ads”. These are basically promoted posts, but rather than just appearing on Google+, they appear throughout the Google Display Network.

    For now, Google is just testing the ad format, which is probably why there wasn’t a bigger announcement, but +Post Ads will make their way to more advertisers in time.

    Here’s what they look like:

    “Brand advertisers want to create visually rich, compelling experiences online, which is why we’ve seen growing interest from advertisers in formats designed around engagement, like TrueView and Engagement Ads,” says Arkin. “+Post ads allow a brand to take a piece of their public Google+ content, like a photo, video or even a Hangout, and with a few clicks, turn it into a display ad that can run across the more than 2 million sites in the Google Display Network. This lets brands think of the entire web as their social stream.”

    “Bringing together the sharing capabilities of Google+ and the reach of our ad products has already allowed advertisers to better connect with customers, and customers to better discover what others are thinking,” he adds. “For example, showing social annotations on search ads has helped increase click through rates, and advertisers that ran Hangouts on Air in the YouTube masthead have seen strong participation. Similarly, +Post ads will allow advertisers to start conversations right from the ad – consumers can reshare a video, leave a comment or a question for the brand, or even join a live Hangout. These conversations create a valuable community around a brand where people can talk with each other and with the brand itself.”

    This could be the start of something big.

    So far, Google is just testing +Post Ads with a select group of partners, including Toyota, and Cadbury UK. Google says these brands are seeing expansion rates 50% higher than the industry average for rich media ads.

    Google says it plans to open the offering up to additional advertisers after a few months of testing and feedback.

    [via 9to5Google]

  • Facebook Suggests Advertising Popular Posts with Notifications to Page Admins [UPDATED]

    Facebook is doing more and more these days to get pages to promote their content, and it seems that they company has now expanded that push to notifications.

    We noticed a new type of notification this morning, one that comes from Facebook and informs you that a certain post on a page on which you’re an admin is “performing better than 90% of other posts on the Page.” It then suggests that you “advertise it to get even better results.”

    Various WebProNews writers received this same notification this morning (we’re all admins on the WPN Facebook page). Clicking on the notification takes us to the “Advertise on Facebook” page and gets us started on setting up a promoted post with said article.

    Here’s what it looks like in the notifications:

    I’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on the test, and will update this article accordingly.

    UPDATE: Facebook has confirmed with me that this is a test that they’re running.

    This isn’t the first attempt that Facebook has made in recent memory to get page owners to promote more of their posts. Last month, Facebook made a few subtle changes to Pages, including the addition of a new analytics box inside the admin panel. Facebook also softened the language of page promotion, changing the “promote” post button to one that says “boost” post.

  • Facebook Does More to Coax Pages to Promote Posts

    If you operate a Facebook Page, you may have noticed a couple of subtle changes Facebook has made to the look of the pages for admins. These changes are a clear attempt to coax page owners into promoting their content, or at least help remind them that it’s an option.

    First up, you may have seen the new post analytics box at the top of your admin panel. It shows all of your promotable posts (links, photos, etc.), their total reach, and their paid reach. There’s also a button to quickly promote each individual post:

    The other is simply a terminology shift. Instead of offering admins the ability to “promote” post, Facebook is now saying they can “boost” posts. I guess “boost” sounds better that “promote.” Clicking on “boost post” brings up the same Promoted Post menu that you’re used to.

    Earlier this year, Facebook came under fire over their Promoted Posts feature. Some page owners accused Facebook of pulling the old “bait-and-switch” by burying pages’ content in order to force them to pay for promotion. Facebook vehemently denied this.

    Back in December, Facebook announced that about 300,000 pages had paid to promote at least one post. Doing the math, that meant that just of 2% of local businesses pages had utilized the feature. Facebook also said that 2.5 million individual posts had been promoted, meaning that the average page owner who utilizes Promoted Posts promotes a little over 8 posts. These figures are now a few months old, but it gives us a little insight into how much attention page owners were giving the Promoted Post option about 7 months in. Now, we’re coming up on one year of Facebook opening up Promoted Posts to page owners.

  • Once Again, Facebook Denies ‘Bait-and-Switch’ with Promoted Posts. Do You Believe Them?

    In May of 2012, Facebook unveiled a brand new feature for page owners. It was called “Promoted Posts,” and it allowed admins to pay a small to medium fee (depending on the follower base) in order to hoist their posts to a more prominent placement in users’ news feeds. Basically, it allowed page owners to make sure their most important posts were seen by more people, and provided a great revenue opportunity for Facebook.

    A few months later, Facebook extended the Promoted Posts functionality to individual users. By October, anyone with an account could pay to promote their witty status, cool new article, or cute new baby photo.

    Ok, cool. So far so good. You may think that the entire Promoted Posts concept is wacky, but hey, to each his own. As a page owner, you could simply choose not to participate in Promoted Posts and go about your business as usual – simply posting away.

    As a page owner, have you seen your average engagement decrease since the launch of Promoted Posts? Have you used Promoted Posts? Let us know in the comments.

    Of course, that zen-like mentality could quickly disappear if, let’s say, Facebook was rigging the game. And that’s exactly what some page owners began accusing Facebook of late last year: one giant bait-and-switch.

    The “Bait-and-Switch”

    Reports emerged that Facebook was deliberately decreasing the reach of regular, non-promoted posts in order to force people into paying for the Promoted Post product. In fact, that was the whole point of unveiling the feature – to cast un-promoted posts into oblivion so that people would see such a small return (likes, comments, and shares) that they would have no choice but to pay to promote.

    Most of the claims hinged on the simple observation by the accusers that posts published on their Facebook pages were not driving the traffic that they used to – which naturally meant that not as many people were seeing the posts in their news feeds. How could my likes be increasing, but my traffic from Facebook be decreasing?

    The common conclusion from people like Richard Metzger at Dangerous Times and even popular Facebook celebrities like George Takei (who hopped on the bandwagon) was that Facebook was turning down the volume on their regular posts.

    Although the accusation gained plenty of steam inside the tech media circles, Facebook maintained its innocence in the matter. The company said, point blank, that they did not decrease the visibility of page posts in order to force people into buying Promoted Posts.

    And there was some pretty compelling evidence to support Facebook’s innocence. Facebook has admitted that only around 16% or so of a page’s followers even see their posts in the news feed. It’s always been like this. Facebook has never been able to show 100% of followers 100% of posts from pages and people they subscribe to. There’s simply too much competition for real estate in the news feed. As users begin to friend more and more people and like more and more pages, their overall engagement with each individual person and page is going naturally decrease.

    Josh Constine over at TechCrunch suggested that a move that Facebook made to fight spam had actually been one of the root causes of the so-called “visibility decreases” that many page owners were reporting.

    “We made a relatively large ranking change in September that was designed to reduce spam complaints from users. We used [spam] reports at an aggregate level to find Pages or apps generating a lot of reports [and decrease their reach]. We’ve also added personalized attempts to reduce presence of posts you’re likely to complain about,” said Facebook.

    In short, the less engaging your posts were, the less likely they were to show up in your followers’ news feeds.

    And the push to control spammy posts is simply one news feed algorithm tweak that Facebook made – and they make a bunch, all the time. Facebook is constantly changing the way its algorithms decide what shows up in whose news feed. The bottom line, according to those who believed Facebook, was that sure, your post reach could be fluctuating (or even simply decreasing), but it’s not because Facebook is pulling a bait-and-switch with Promoted Posts.

    Still, page owners continued to complain that for them, personally, they were seeing less return from their posts. Sure, you can throw graphs and excuses at the issue, but you can’t explain that the decrease in visibility coincided with the dawn of Promoted Posts. Although Facebook has been adamant that they are not pulling this “bait-and-switch,” many page owners and public figures with many subscribers have remained unconvinced.

    New Accusations

    Fast forward to a couple of days ago and to an article by Nick Bilton in the the New York Times’ “Bits” tech blog. It begins, “something is puzzling on Facebook.”

    What it asserts is the same argument that we discussed above: Facebook is screwing you. Hard.

    His story picks up soon after Facebook first allowed users to “subscribe” to public figures back in 2011. At that point, he had about 25,000 subscribers and his average article post on Facebook would receive a few hundred likes and at least a few dozen shares (535 likes and 53 shares or 323 likes and 88 shares, numbers like that).

    Today, he has over 400,000 subscribers. If you think that means the number of likes and shares per post will have increased 16-fold, you’re wrong.

    “From the four columns I shared in January, I have averaged 30 likes and two shares a post. Some attract as few as 11 likes. Photo interaction has plummeted, too. A year ago, pictures would receive thousands of likes each; now, they average 100. I checked the feeds of other tech bloggers, including MG Siegler of TechCrunch and reporters from The New York Times, and the same drop has occurred,” says Bilton.

    So, he tested out a Promoted Post. After paying $7 to get one of his article posts promoted by Facebook, he says that he saw a 1,000% increase in interaction in a few hours.

    “It seems as if Facebook is not only promoting my links on news feeds when I pay for them, but also possibly suppressing the ones I do not pay for,” he concludes.

    Fact Check

    Although Facebook has been denying this claim for months and months, this week was the first time that they published a lengthy “fact check” post on the topic.

    In it, Facebook unequivocally states that it’s a false allegation.

    “There have been recent claims suggesting that our News Feed algorithm suppresses organic distribution of posts in favor of paid posts in order to increase our revenue. This is not true.”

    Facebook says that in reality, engagement has increased among people who allow subscribers – 34%, in fact. That means likes, comments, and shares.

    “News Feed shows the most relevant stories from your friends, people you follow and Pages you are connected to. In fact, the News Feed algorithm is separate from the advertising algorithm in that we don’t replace the most engaging posts in News Feed with sponsored ones,” says Facebook.

    The “fact check” post seems to stem directly from and come as a pointed rebuttal to Bilton’s NYT article. Twice, Facebook makes a point to say that you can’t just compare anecdotal evidence from separate posts that occurred years apart.

    The argument here is based on a few anecdotes of one post from one year to a totally different post from another year.This is an apples-to-oranges comparison; you can’t compare engagement rates on two different posts year over year.

    For early adopters of Follow, we do see instances where their follower numbers have gone up but their engagement has gone down from a year ago. When we first launched Follow, the press coverage combined with our marketing efforts drove large adoption. A lot of users started following public figures who had turned on Follow. Over time, some of those users engaged less with those figures, and so we started showing fewer stories from those figures to users who didn’t engage as much with their stories. The News Feed changes we made in the fall to focus on higher quality stories may have also decreased the distribution for less engaging stories from public figures.

    Read: that aforementioned spam adjustment. Facebook is saying that yes, we adjust the news feed algorithm to show users more relevant posts, but we are in no way decreasing organic reach to force our Promoted Posts product on people.

    All this being said, Facebook is taking it head on. For many Facebook users, trust in Big Blue isn’t a common emotion. For page owners and popular figures who have seen their engagement decline, it may be hard to swallow that there’s not something malicious going on here.

    Do you believe Facebook when they say that they are not decreasing visibility of non-promoted posts in order to generate revenue from Promoted Posts? Let us know in the comments.

  • Facebook: More People See Your Posts Than You Think

    Facebook: More People See Your Posts Than You Think

    The question of how Facebook decides how many people see the content that you post has been a pretty volatile topic over the last few months. Basically, Facebook has been accused to limiting the reach of people and page’s normal posts in order to force them into using Promoted Posts, thus generating revenue for Facebook. Facebook adamantly denies all of this. But more on that later.

    In the aforementioned climate, just days after they released a long defense of their ranking algorithms and practices, Facebook has published a new study on “estimating audience size” on the site.

    Spolier alert: Facebook says that people vastly underestimate how many people see their posts.

    Facebook asked 1,131 users a simple question: How many of your friends do you think actually saw this (a single, specific) post?

    Here are the results:

    “By and large, people underestimated the size of their audience. When we asked users how many friends saw a particular post, the median user guessed 20 friends, while the actual median was 78.”

    For the more visually oriented, Facebook has provided some graphical support. Every dot under the dotted line represents a user who underestimated the reach of their post:

    Overall, Facebook says that the median user reaches 60% of their friends over the course of a month.

    Facebook expanded their research and looked at 220,000 users and the connection between audience (how many saw the post) and both total number of friends and number of comments on the post. Spoiler alert: things vary quite a bit and neither is a very good predictor of eventual reach of any given post.

    What the data does do is show that as you gain more friends, the percentage of them who will see your posts decreases. But, the high end of the audience reach is probably a bit higher than you thought.

    Facebook has said in the past that overall, any post will be seen by somewhere around 16% of a user’s friends. This new data shows that the variations are pretty wild. For instance, a person with 400 friends can possibly have a reach of just a couple of percent, all the way up to nearly 40%.

    Of course, plenty of things go into who sees your posts on Facebook. For instance: number of friends, what time of day you post it, how many shares it gets, competition in friends’ news feeds and yes, Facebook’s system of ranking algorithms that determine much of this.

    After once again being accused of decreasing the visibility of users’ posts in order to promote their Promoted Posts product, Facebook defended themselves earlier this week.

    “There have been recent claims suggesting that our News Feed algorithm suppresses organic distribution of posts in favor of paid posts in order to increase our revenue. This is not true,” they said.

    Still, page owners continue to report that they are seeing less reach on their posts than they used to, and many blame Facebook for shady practices.

    This new research from Facebook suggests that people have a tendency to underestimate the reach of their posts, and that using likes and comments on a post to judge how many people actually saw it is unreliable at best.

    What an interesting time to publish such a message. Coincidence? I think not.

  • Facebook Thinks You May Want to Pay to Promote Your Friend’s Witty Status

    After unveiling Promoted Posts for businesses that allowed them to highlight and give more visibility to individual posts (for a fee, of course), Facebook eventually let individual users do the same for their statuses, photos, events, and more.

    Now, they’ve taken it a step further. Starting now, Facebook is rolling out the ability to let you pay to promote your friends’ statuses, photos, events, etc.

    So if your friend has an amazing photo that you think more people should see, you can now help them out, for a price.

    The only people for which the post will be given prominent billing are the poster’s friends. You’re basically just bearing the weight for their promoted post. If the original poster and the promoter have mutual friends, they will see the whole thing.

    “You can only promote posts to the people that your friend originally shared with. If you have mutual friends, they’ll see that you shared it and promoted it,” says Facebook.

    It should be gradually rolling out globally, and it will only be able to be used by those with 5,000 or less friends/subscribers. Shortly after rolling out Promoted Posts for users, Facebook did away with the 5,000-friend limit and let anyone and everyone promote posts. If this sort of cross-Promoted Posts takes off, there’s no reason to think Facebook won’t consider upping the limit here too.

    [via The Verge]

  • Only 2% of Facebook’s Local Business Pages Are Using Promoted Posts

    Back in May, Facebook began allowing page owners to pay to give their posts extended visibility in their fans’ news feeds. With Promoted Posts, Facebook gave business owners a way to make sure the right people see the right content- at least that’s the company’s pitch. Recently we’ve seen some page owners upset with Facebook over Promoted Posts and content visibility. They claim that changes to Facebook’s content algorithms have made their content less visible and that this is all part of Facebook’s plan to promote Promoted Posts.

    Facebook says that’s simply not true. Either way, are you curious about the first six months of Promoted Posts? Just how much are page owners using the product?

    Facebook has just released some figures on its initiative. According to the company, 300,000 pages have paid to promote at least one post. Facebook also said that they have reached 13 million local pages. If you do the math, you find that means just over 2% of pages have used Promoted Posts.

    The company also says that 2.5 million individual posts have been promoted. That means that the average page owner who utilizes Promoted Posts has promoted a little over 8 posts. For pages in general, the receive 150 million visitors on a daily basis. Facebook says that half of them come via mobile.

    In October, Facebook expanded their Promoted Posts product to individual users. Now, you don’t have to be a page to pat to promote your posts on the site. Initially, you could only promoted your individual posts if you had less than 5,000 friends. Last month, Facebook relaxed that rule. I would be interested to hear the figures on this initiative. I guess it’s simply too young of a venture for a meaningful report.

  • Facebook Updates Promoted Posts With Better Country Targeting

    Facebook has launched an update for Promoted Posts, so advertisers can better target countries where the majority of their fans are.

    “We heard your feedback that using Promoted Posts in certain instances caused an unexpected increase in out-of-country engagement,” says an update from Facebook Marketing. “We have released an update to Promoted Posts to target spend to the countries where most of your fans reside by default.”

    Advertisers can still control targeting on their own, if they want to change the default, of course. You can still refine the audience that is eligible to see your posts, Facebook explains. “This can be done by targeting your Page post to specific locations and audiences,” the company says.

    Facebook has a Help Center article about how to control who sees your Page’s posts here.

  • If You’re Kind of a Big Deal on Facebook, You Can Now Pay to Promote Your Posts Too

    If You’re Kind of a Big Deal on Facebook, You Can Now Pay to Promote Your Posts Too

    In early October, Facebook expanded their promoted posts service to allow individual users to pay a small fee to promote one of their statuses, photos, events, etc. With every one of those updates a U.S. user posts, a “promote” option now appears next to the “like” and “comment” button. Tempting, of course, if you have something really important or witty that you want a bunch of people to see.

    Promoted Posts for People work similarly to Facebook’s Promoted Posts for Pages, which debuted during the summer. Pay a few bucks, and Facebook pushes the status up to the top of your friends’ news feeds. Facebook markets Promoted Posts as a way to make sure the really important stuff is seen by everyone important.

    The price to promote a personal post is around $7 for most users, and the promoted post will feature a “sponsored” tag when it appears in a friend’s news feed.

    One of the caveats that Facebook announced when they unveiled Promoted Posts for People was a friend-limit. Only users with less than 5,000 could play to promote their posts.

    Now, that changes. Facebook has now expanded the Promoted Post for People initiative to include Facebook’s more popular power users.

    “We are continuing to test promoted posts in the U.S.,” Facebook told VentureBeat. “As part of this, we are opened up the test to enable people with 5,000 or more friends and subscribers to use the product. We are also continuing to experiment with different pricing models. The price of promoted posts is based on a number of factors, including the reach and the number of people you are promoting to.”

    Of course, the price would necessarily jump a little bit. For instance, VentureBeats’s Jennifer Van Grove has just shy of 500,000 Facebook subscribers and was given a price of $49 to promote her post.

    But for a user with hundreds or thousands or even millions of friends/subscribers, it might be worth it to promote something really, really big.

  • Are Classified Ads Coming to Your Facebook News Feed? [UPDATED]

    Facebook may be working on a new ad product that will put the company in direct competition with sites like Craigslist and LinkedIn. According to a report from The Daily, Facebook has fast-tracked a new classified ads service that will allow users to populate their friends’ news feeds with postings for a variety of goods and services.

    The report cites two anonymous sources inside Facebook, who independently confirmed that the new classified ads feature is currently in development. Apparently, it’s being called “Marketplace” (for now). Sound familiar? If you remember the term “Facebook Marketplace,” you’re probably in the minority. Facebook previously launched a classified service a few years ago called “Marketplace,” but it is infrequently used. You can access the service here, as it’s now called the “Oodle Marketplace.”

    The new Marketplace product would be much different that the old Marketplace product, as it would rely on social sharing and news feed placement. According to the report, users would be able to create their own mini-classified ads and promote them in their friends’ news feeds. This could mean anything from goods for sale to job offerings to apartment rentals. The sources claim that users would have to pay a small fee ($5 or so) for a goods for sale post, but classifieds like “roommate needed” would be free.

    Of course, having these classifieds pop up in news feeds instead of only accesible via an app would boost their visibility and could possibly turn Facebook into a big player in this arena. These new classifieds would obviously cut into Craigslist’s market share, and possibly LinkedIn’s slice of the job postings pie.

    If you’re thinking “Hey, Facebook already lets me pay to promote posts.” you’d be correct. Facebook opened up their Promoted Posts product to users in early October. As long as you have less than 5,000 friends, you can pay to promote any of your status updates, photo uploads, or events in the hopes that more of your friends will see them.

    So how would classifieds be any different? Apparently, they would have a slightly different look and could possibly allow for post-specific enhancements, like multiple photo view for products or rentals.

    UPDATE: A Facebook spokesperson tells me that “Facebook is not working on a product like the one [I] describe.”

  • Facebook Lets U.S. Users Pay to Promote Posts

    Apparently, we’re moving closer to a world where individuals can pay to make sure their friends see their witty status update or cute engagement photo. Today Facebook announced that they are expanding their Promoted Post for People test to the U.S.

    As long as you live in the U.S. and have less than 5,000 friends, you should see a “promote” option appear next to the “like,” “comment” and “share” buttons on your posts. Clicking “promote” will take users to a payment option where they can enter a credit card or use PayPal.

    “Every day, news feed delivers your posts to your friends. Sometimes a particular friend might not notice your post, especially if a lot of their friends have been posting recently and your story isn’t near the top of their feed. When you promote a post – whether it’s wedding photos, a garage sale, or big news – you bump it higher in news feed so your friends and subscribers are more likely to notice it,” says Facebook in a blog post.

    Once you pay to promote a post, it will appear in your friends’ news feeds as “Sponsored,” just like a business page’s post does. As the promoter, if you hover over the sponsored link you can see feedback from Facebook. It will show you a comparison between how many regular views the post has received versus the amount of paid views. It will also say something to the effect of “Promoted Posts stay higher in news feed to help people notice them. so far, your post has had X times as many views because you promoted it.”

    As for the price, Facebook doesn’t specify. In house, we’ve seen a promotion go for $7.00. In previous tests, we’ve seen the price at $6.30, and even much higher (like $16.00). Since this is still technically a test, Facebook will probably mess around with the cost in order to find the sweet spot that both generates revenue and attracts the most play from users.

    We first saw the Promoted Posts for People feature pop up as a test for New Zealand users back in May. Back then, it was called “Highlight.” Just a couple of weeks after that, Facebook launched Promoted Posts for Pages. Then, a few weeks ago, we heard that Facebook was in the process of expanding the test.

    And now, the U.S. is the next big testing block. It will be interesting to see how many users will pay to promote their own statuses, photos, events, etc. There are definitely situations where it would pay to promote a post. For instance, “Hey, my band is playing Friday night,” or “Yay, he just proposed!”

    But the fact that an actual individual’s post could be marked as “sponsored” displays a little bit of narcissism to other users. And $7 is pretty steep, no matter how much of a reach advantage the promotion gives you.

    Would you pay to promote a post?

  • Facebook Expands Promoted Posts for Users Test

    Facebook is once again testing the self-absorption and inherent narcissism of its users by allowing them to pay to make sure their witty statuses and clever amateur photography reach the maximum number of friends. Once a limited test, Facebook has confirmed that they are expanding the option for users to pay to promote posts.

    “We are expanding a test that started last May that enables people to pay to promote a status update so that more friends may see it in their news feed. We’re constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends,” said Facebook in a statement.

    Back in May, the feature was called “Highlight” and was only tested on a small batch of users in New Zealand. At that time, images of the feature showed a price of around $2, payable through PayPal or credit card. “Highlight an important post,” it said. “Make sure friends see this.”

    Of course, Promoted Posts for Pages popped up between then and now. Promoted Posts allow brands to pay to promote their statuses, photos, videos, offers, and questions to a larger percentage of their fan base. The more they pay – the more people eventually see the post.

    And it looks like Facebook’s “Highlight” feature has turned into “Promoted Posts for users.”

    As you can see, the new option brings up a box that asks users to “Promote an important post.” IT goes on to say that “now you can promote and bump your important news, links, and photos higher in news feed.”

    Only this time, it looks like the price has jumped significantly:

    Facebook promoted posts for users

    This video shows Promoted Posts for users charging a little over 3 Euros.

    Of course, Facebook tests new features all the time and only a fraction of them ever come to fruition. But the fact that this product has been around for a few months and has received an extra push from Facebook means that the company is definitely considering it, if initial user reaction is strong. In May, I said that this feature could be profitable for Facebook, considering people really want to make their voice heard. Then again, I’m not sure that the average Facebook users really understands that their posts are only reaching a certain amount of their friends on an everyday basis. Those people may not see the need to “promote” anything.

    What do you think? Would you pay to promote a post?

    [via The Next Web]

  • Facebook Page Admins Can Now Promote Posts on Mobile

    Good news, page mangers who want their posts to reach the maximum amount of people: Facebook has just updated its free Pages Manager app and one particular enhancement makes it easy to reach your target audience on the go.

    Now, pages admins can choose to promote a post directly from the app.

    Version 1.4 of the Pages Manager app also allows admins to schedule posts for a later time and improves the display to a two-column format on the iPad. But it’s the “promote recent posts to reach a bigger audience” part that should delight page admins.

    Facebook unveiled Promoted Posts back in May, and they allow page owners to pay to promote statuses, photos, videos, offers and questions to a larger proportion of their total audience. Only a small percentage of any page’s fans ever see their posts, so Facebook says that Promoted Posts is a way to increase your page audience.

    To promoted a post from the Pages Manager app, admins will need to have already promoted a post via desktop.

    [h/t CNET]

  • Facebook Tests Promoted Posts in Your News Feed from Pages Way Outside Your Network

    Soon, you may begin to see promoted posts from pages that your don’t even like – or your friends don’t even like. You may see a post from a brand that you’ve never even heard of.

    That’s because Facebook is testing a new ad format that will allow marketers to promote posts to users that have no real affiliation with the brand on the site. Yet.

    Of course, the hope is that these out-of-network promoted posts will reach a much broader audience and thus grab more users to “like” the page. These new promoted posts for non-likers will show up in the news feed, and will feature a “like” button at the top right corner and a “sponsored” denotation on the bottom.

    “Starting soon, we are beginning a very small test that will allow marketers to promote page posts to people beyond their fans in the news feed,” says Facebook.

    Facebook also says that these ads may show up on desktop and mobile.

    Before this test, any sort of promoted post or sponsored story that you saw in your news feed was there because you liked the page or because one of your friends liked the page. This new type of ad option would be huge for marketers, allowing them to reach a completely new audience of users who may have never heard of their brand. For instance, a new restaurant could target users in a certain city, even if they haven’t garnered any real “likes” yet.

    Of course, this is just a test, and Facebook runs hundreds of tests every month. But something tells me this one will stick. It’s a clever way for Facebook to expand ad revenue and an improved way for businesses to expand their reach on the network.

    But of course, it’s also Facebook getting one step closer to selling straight-up advertising on the site.

    [Image courtesy Inside Facebook]

  • Facebook Is Putting Words In Users’ Mouths By Promoting Content From Pages They Like

    There’s a new feature making its way to the Facebook News Feed that has some people up in arms. And while I’m usually the first to defend Facebook against the wrath of whiny, misinformed, overreactions from the Facebook population – I have to say that this time, they may have a reason to be upset.

    You may or may not have seen a new type of post appear on your News Feed. It looks a lot like a promoted post, and shows that one or two or your friends “like” a certain page. Under that, it will show a recent post from said page. The main point though is that it’s not a promoted post, or a Sponsored Story. It’s simply Facebook promoting interaction with pages.

    For instance, yesterday I saw such a post that told me Chris Crum “likes” Bing. Under that information was the lastest thing that Bing had posted to their Timeline. Seem innocuous enough, right?

    Well, not always.

    The problem with posts like this is that they can give the wrong impression – and that wrong impression can lead to a lot of embarrassment, or even worse.

    ZDNet, who first reported on the issue, obtained this screenshot that captures (perfectly, I might add) the complications that can arise from this new type of post:

    It’s obvious that the user had simply “liked” drugstore.com in the past, which is harmless at the core. But when the algorithm included drugstore.com’s most recent post and it had to do with lube, well, to the untrained eye it appears that the user is simply posting a link to K-Y Warming Sensations.

    I’m sure you can see the problem here. It’s not a huge leap to imagine how something like this could be a reputation ruiner – or if nothing else cause someone to lose their auntie May’s friendship.

    Facebook has issued a statement on the new type of post, which is not accidental:

    To help people find new Pages, events, and other interesting information, people may now see posts from a Page a friend likes. These posts will include the social context from your friends who like the Page and will respect all existing settings.

    Who knows all of the crazy pages that I’ve liked after one too man beers. With this new feature, any of the hateful, ignorant swill that pours out of whoever runs the page’s mouth is going to look like my own – or least look like I endorse it. Part of this is my fault, of course. I did indeed “like” the page. But part of the blame has to rest on Facebook for not immediately noticing how these awkward situations could arise.

  • George Takei: If You Want Me On Google+, Circle Me 250,000 Times And Prove It’s Not A Ghost Town

    For years, George Takei was mostly known for his role as Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek (in both TV and film). While many Star Trek fans will probably always remember him for that role, the 75-year-old actor has made a name for himself in another medium – social media star.

    It’s highly likely that you follow Takei on Facebook or Twitter. On Facebook, he routinely posts funny images, popular memes, status updates, and the like. Basically, if the reddit community or something similar would appreciate it, there’s a chance that Mr. Takei is sharing it on Facebook.

    Takei has amassed over 2.1 million “likes” to his page, and his posts usually receive tens of thousands of likes and shares and sometimes hundreds of comments.

    For example:

    George Takei 90 days ago

    You have to be of a certain age probably to get the full humor of this. Gotta love Bob Ross.

    Powered by socialditto   1,000+ likes ·  969 comments

    or…

    George Takei 5 days ago

    I didn’t know Yoda visited Beatlejuice.

    Powered by socialditto   1,000+ likes ·  960 comments

    Long story short – he’s a Facebook superstar. He’s also a minor star on Twitter and Pinterest, mind you. But now, some active Google+ users want to bring Takei’s humorous presence to their network of choice.

    Here’s how operation #TakeiTuesday was born and spread across Google+:

    Stephanie Van Pelt

    Stephanie Van Pelt 1 day ago

    All right all. It's here. It's #TakeiTuesday ! Help us get @GeorgeTakei to join us over here on G+!!!!

    Send him a Tweet and let him see all the G+ love we have to offer!

    Stephanie Van Pelt originally shared:
    Hi guise.

    I don't know about you, but I'd love to see #GeorgeTakei  join us here on G+. Just putting the word out there that I'm on a mission to get his attention. I was thinking that on #TakeiTuesday  it might be a nice time to try to reach him on Twitter @GeorgeTakei to show him how much love he'd see from this community.

    All right my Trekkers, who's in? 12    7 Powered by socialditto

    Mike Elgan

    Mike Elgan 12 hours ago

    Join the effort to beam +George Takei from Facebook to Google+!

    Unless you're new to the planet, you've heard about actor +George Takei's vocal complaints against Facebook's idea to actually deliver your posts only if you pay. (Right now, Facebook secretly deletes most of the status updates you post without telling you or the people who will never see them.) 

    http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/06/14/george-takei-fires-his-phaser-at-facebook/

    A growing red-shirt army of Google+ pleeps, including +Robert Partridge, +Stephanie Van Pelt, +Danial Hallock, +Sarah Rios, +Simon Skiles and others are banding together to beam the one and only +George Takei from the inhospitable Planet Facebook to the Starship Google+!

    (Too much?) 

    Here's what you can do to join the effort: 

    1. Circle +George Takei

    2. Plus-one and share this message to grow the movement. 

    3. Write a comment below in support of +George Takei dumping Facebook and moving to Google+!

    https://plus.google.com/u/0/102004895957308863792/posts/9LhGPmKywft 2011    442 Powered by socialditto

    The reference above to Takei’s outspoken anger toward Facebook and their new Promoted Posts feature stems from this update he posted to the site on June 13th:

    FB used to allow fans to elect to see ALL posts by selecting “All Updates” from the right hand corner of a post. For community pages such as this, though, FB recently decided that only certain fans will see certain posts, and it plans to ask me to pay for more fan views.

    I understand that FB has to make money, especially now that it is public, but in my view this development turns the notion of “fans” on its head. So I encourage all friends and fans to visit my page regularly to make sure they share in all the fun.

    –George

    He later posted a follow up where he let a Facebook employee clarify that “the main point of confusion we’ve seen is that pages don’t realize that their posts were never reaching 100% of fans. If you go to your page insights, you’ll see this has always been the case.”

    In fact, Facebook’s Promoted Posts simply allows page owners to have their posts reach more than the typical 6%-12% that some of them are used to.

    Nevertheless, Google+ users pounced on the notion to get Takei over on their side. And it looks like it has worked. Takei posted this just a few hours ago to his Facebook page:

    George Takei 4 hours ago

    Fans on google+ started #TakeiTuesday that trended to #2 yesterday. My twitter feed was awash with it! So, I’m negotiating with Brad over whether I’ve the time to establish a new base on google+ in addition to my FB, Twitter and Pinterest. In the meantime, I’ve got a little pied-à-terre there now. Brad said if we get 250K fans to “circle” me (did I say that right?) it might be worth populating the profile with content. So, we’ll see.

    George Takei – Google+
    Okay, google+ fans, I hear you. Brad says if I can get 250K fans or more to “circle” me there, that means google+ is not a ghost town. He doesn’t think it’s gonna happen. Shall we prove him wrong?

    Powered by socialditto   1,000+ likes ·  739 comments

    That link does indeed take you to George Takei’s new Google+ page. But he was serious about the no content part. It looks like he’s going to have to see 250,000 people add him to circles in order to start really using the service.

    As of right now, he’s up to 18,000.

    When Google+ was in its infancy, it openly courted celebrities to join – their weight could obviously help to popularize the network. and to some extent, it worked. Takei’s not going to single-handedly launch Google+ into Facebook’s orbit, but having more popular presences from other social realms embrace Google+ couldn’t hurt.

  • Facebook Promoted Posts (Sorta) Explained [Updated]

    Facebook started rolling out its Promoted Posts feature for Page administrators last week but, unfortunately, didn’t explain a whole lot in how this new tool actually works. It sounds like it could be a useful tool, but its quiet introduction produced more questions than it provided answers. How will the promoted post appear on a follower’s page? How is the pricing scale determined? These are probably things every Page administrator should know before they start throwing money down the big, blue wishing well of Facebook.

    Anybody given the promoted posts a test drive yet? Do you feel that Facebook is trying to double-charge businesses to reach their followers, or is this a new marketing tool with some legitimate value? Share your experience with us and other readers in the comments below.

    Perhaps finally getting wind of the fact that this tool, while potentially useful, isn’t exactly as intuitive as Facebook may have expected, the company released a video today explaining a little bit more about how promoted posts work.

    Most revealing about this explanation is that whenever someone who follows your Page likes, comments, or shares your promoted post, all of that person’s friends will see that promoted post as well. This was mentioned all the way back in February at Facebook’s marketing conference but, really, with all the changes that the company continues to introduce, it’s hard to keep up sometimes.

    First, a post can only be promoted for 3 days. You can start promoting it the moment it’s posted to your Timeline or you can promote it shortly afterward. However, if you choose not to promote it upon posting it, know that the amount of time that any post can be promoted is 3 days from the time that post is created. In other words, if you make a post on Monday at 12PM but don’t promoted it until Tuesday at 12PM, your post will only stay promoted for two days since the shelf-life of that post’s promotability will expire on Thursday at 12PM, the third day since that post was created. Make sense?

    If you’ve got a post that you only want promoted during certain times, you can pause and resume a promoted post anytime. I’ve included the video below, but given some of the questions that readers have had regarding last week’s unrolling of promoted posts, I’m afraid some of you will find this video scant of answers you’re looking for.

    Nothing on in the video or the FAQ, which is now available, suggests that the posts you choose to promote will float near the top of the news feed the way a Twitter promoted tweet appears. Instead, by all estimations, it appears that the post will simply be inserted into your followers’ news feeds in the chronological order that it was posted. So yes, infer that if your follower has 1,000 friends or so, it’s possible that the post you paid money to promote could get drowned out in the news feed somewhat quickly. We sent an email to Facebook to clarify where and how exactly the promoted post will appear in a follower’s newsfeed, but as of writing this we haven’t heard back.

    When the Promote feature first started appearing last week, the payment scale was paired with the estimate of users you could reach with each monetary value. I won’t explain that all over again here, but if you missed it, check out the previous article about Facebook’s promoted posts.

    One new tool that I’ve noticed since the promotion tool appeared on WebProNews’ Page is the statistical information at the bottom of each post. In the lower left-hand corner, you’ll see the number of people reached and what percentage of your fans that number represents.

    Facebook Promoted Posts

    By either hovering over or clicking the number of people reached, you’ll see a breakdown of how people saw the post. In the example provided, you’ll see how many people were reached organically, virally, and paid.

    Facebook Promoted Posts

    Facebook Promoted Posts

    I’m throwing in this example from Facebook to illustrate what the graph looks like with all three types of reach.

    Facebook Promoted Posts

    After clicking on the percentage of people reached, you’ll see a small balloon appear with a breakdown of how people were reached. The first example below is from Facebook, and I’m going to go ahead and say it: 440 people of 608 isn’t 40% of the total, it’s more like 72%. I’m not sure what confidence you should have in Facebook’s example if the example itself can’t compute percentages, but then again, it’d be nice if Facebook actually explained this with a little more clarity.

    Facebook Promoted Posts

    More mathematically accurate, here’s the example I took from WPN’S Facebook Page.

    Facebook Promoted Posts

    In the top example, you’ll notice two colors, blue and green. The color scale is the same as in the bar graph you saw when looking at the actual number of people reached: blue for organic/without promotion, red for viral, and green for paid. Essentially, these two options show you most of the same data, it’s just a matter of how you prefer to think of your reach: raw numbers or percentages.

    I suggest perusing the FAQ about promoted posts for more information about how this feature works. For example, you can apparently target an audience in a specific location but in order to even have the capability to promote a post, your Page needs to have a minimum of 400 likes. Things like that are important to know, especially if you’re going to fork over your money to Facebook.

    Note that when you see the number of followers your promoted posts will reach in the “Promote” drop-down menu, the operative word here is “estimate.” You may pay $50 to reach an estimate of 12,000 followers, but that number could likely be lower. Then again, that could also be higher – it’s just the way the dice tumbles, I suppose, although it’s puzzling that there isn’t a more accurate algorithm that could simply select 12,000 followers to deploy your promoted post to.

    If this all seems like you’re paying for the same promotion twice…. you wouldn’t be faulted for thinking that. In order to even have the option to promote a post, you must first advertise and promote your page by other means in order to get the requisite 400 followers. That can cost you in either time or money, or both, depending on how aggressively and quickly you want to amass that 400. But then, once your Page has leveled up enough so that you can promote posts, you must then pay yet again so that you can continue to reach all of the people you’ve worked so diligently to pull under your Page’s umbrella.

    Unless there’s still some pieces missing to the puzzle of promoted posts or I’m simply failing to grasp Facebook’s purpose here, the promoted posts don’t exactly seem like a progressive way for a brand to promote themselves on Facebook.

    UPDATE: A Facebook spokesperson replied to a few questions I had about the promoted post features. Below is the Q&A from our correspondence:

    1. When a post is promoted, will it just fit into the chronology of the regular newsfeed or will it float near the top of the newsfeed so it always remains prominent? A promoted post will act like any other ad or Sponsored Story in your News Feed.

    2. Do you have any examples of what the promoted post would look like in a followers feed? See the Help Center here – an example of what a post might look like is under the fifth question if you expand it. Saw you linked to the Help Center in your post, but wanted to make sure you saw the example.

    3. Is the pricing scale of the promoted post’s reach ($5, $10, $15, etc.) based on the number of followers a Page has? Or is the pricing scale the same for all pages? These ads and Sponsored Stories are priced the same way as ads and Sponsored Stories purchased elsewhere.

    So what do you make of all of this pay-to-promote business? Is Facebook shooting itself in the foot and ruffling the feathers of businesses, or do you see this being a beneficial tool Facebook has given businesses? Again, let us know what you think below.

  • Facebook Promoted Posts Feature Starting to Show Up for Some Pages

    According to a couple of sources out there in the internet, Facebook has started to roll out the Promoted Post feature for Page administrators. Whenever the feature arrives for you and yours, you’ll notice a new “Promote” option next to the box where you type your status update; as of now, from what others have been reporting, the option will sit to the left of the drop-down menu of lists of audiences you want to share your post with, which is next to the blue “Post” button.

    The polished up debut of Promoted Posts appears to build upon something Facebook tested out as far back as March 2010. Essentially, the purpose of paying to promote your update is to reach a larger audience. Upon clicking the “Promote” button, you’ll be presented with a menu of pricing options. The prices to promote a post are staggered based on how much of a reach you want for your post. If you’re aiming for the fences, for example, you can pay $20 to reach about a wide audience of Facebookers who have liked your Page. Alternately, if you want to aim more conservatively, you can select a less expensive value, such as $5, the cheapest (that I’ve seen), to only reach about a more concentrated selection your total fanbase.

    WebProNews’ Facebook page hasn’t yet been granted the Promote function just yet, but the example below was captured by MarketingLand, who apparently have the feature now.

    Image courtesy of MarketingLand

    They’ve got a few other examples of what the new feature looks like on their post about it, if you’re so inclined to investigate the visual evidence further.

    More, Facebook appears to be testing out different pricing structures. Another example spotted over at Business Insider lists the dollar increments as $15, $20, $30, $50, and $75. If I had to guess at this point, I’d say that the different pricing structures – notice BI’s gets a lot more expensive than MarketingLand’s – the different pricing scales are relative to the amount of Facebook fans your Page has. However, if that is the case, it almost seems like Facebook would then be penalizing Pages that have a ton of fans if it’s going to cost those administrators more money to promote a post than it would if they had, say, a fourth of the fans. Guess we’ll wait and see once this feature is fully available.

    This Promoted Post feature doesn’t sound all too dissimilar to something Facebook was testing in New Zealand recently by giving the average Facebook user – not to be confused with the Page users that are for brands, companies, celebrities, etc. – an option to promote their posts. The pay option to promote your post to all of your friends ran about a $1.50 but there weren’t any reports that there were multiple pricing tiers.

    Finally, there’ve been some reports throughout the day today that businesses have been having trouble posting updates to their Facebook Pages, so there could be a possible connection to Facebook’s decision to start rolling out the Promoted Posts option to pages and this temporary impairment of Page administrators’ ability to post links. As of writing this, we’re still not able to post links through our WPN page.

    Anybody else out there getting their hands on the Promoted Post feature early? Let us know what you think, if you’d ever use it, why you’d use it, all that good stuff in the comments below.