Source: http://newsroom.fb.com/News/Testing-Promoted-Posts-for-People-in-the-U-S-1c6.aspx
Facebook is on fire with new functionality launches in the US the last few weeks – Facebook announced 10/3 that a test first launched in New Zealand this past May will roll out to the US enabling people to promote their personal posts to their Facebook friends. “Promoting” your post (for $7), another new revenue stream for Facebook, essentially enables your post to get bumped up higher in your friends' news feeds to get more viewings. This functionality is already available to businesses (you may have seen a “sponsored” ad pop to the top of your news feed) and is rolling out as a test across the US to consumers this month. Facebook’s release noted, “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.” Once a user promotes their post, a tag “Sponsored” will appear on the post (similar to the business-promoted posts) so their friends know. According to the mock-up post included in the release from Facebook, a user can also get metrics around how their post is performing.
Facebook is on fire with new functionality launches in the US the last few weeks – Facebook announced 10/3 that a test first launched in New Zealand this past May will roll out to the US enabling people to promote their personal posts to their Facebook friends. “Promoting” your post (for $7), another new revenue stream for Facebook, essentially enables your post to get bumped up higher in your friends' news feeds to get more viewings. This functionality is already available to businesses (you may have seen a “sponsored” ad pop to the top of your news feed) and is rolling out as a test across the US to consumers this month. Facebook’s release noted, “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.” Once a user promotes their post, a tag “Sponsored” will appear on the post (similar to the business-promoted posts) so their friends know. According to the mock-up post included in the release from Facebook, a user can also get metrics around how their post is performing.
On one hand, when I first heard about this I was a little confused – why would people want to pay $7 to promote their pending nuptials or their new baby when their friends will probably know the news already? Also, because people have the option to sort their news feed by “top stories” (posts with the most “likes”, “comments”, or “shares”), what’s the draw to pay $7 to put your news at the top when, if it’s big news, it may organically move to the top. On the other hand, maybe for a time sensitive 1-off event, such as trying to sell NFL tickets the day before the game or alerting friends of an apartment you’re looking to sublet, it may be worthwhile to draw the attention of your friends. Additionally, because so many Facebook users are accessing Facebook on their mobile devices, they may not take the time to scroll through their entire news feed since the last time they logged in, so maybe it does make sense. Given that I don’t actively post on Facebook (and don’t think I ever have super exciting news to broadcast to the Facebook world), it’s not something I’ll be trying but can’t wait to see if any of my friends do, and if they do, what they’re posting about to get my attention :) …and how much revenue Facebook generates from the functionality.
This could be a stretch, but I’m also interested to see if brand loyalists who are active Facebook users will be tapped by companies to generate posts about their brand to “promote” it to friends (peer to peer versus company to consumer), similar to how bloggers are tapped to generate content about brands to create buzz, etc.
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