When it comes to inventing revenue raising strategies, one thing is for sure, Facebook is the leading social media platform. Last week they announced that they are rolling out yet another new feature, where you can pay to promote your friends’ posts.
From October last year you are able to promote your own posts for as little as $5, which in turn makes your posts appear higher in friends’ newsfeeds. This feature has become a great marketing tool, and is used by many pages to expand their reach and get access to their target audience.
So what’s the idea of promoting your friends’ posts on Facebook?
A Facebook spokesperson described the new feature: “If your friend is running a marathon for charity and has posted that information publicly, you can help that friend by promoting their post to all of your friends. Or if your friend is renting their apartment out and she tells her friends on Facebook, you can share the post with the people you and your friend have in common so that it shows up higher in news feed and more people notice it.”
It is important to note that even if you promote a friend’s you won’t be able to change the privacy settings on the post. This means if the post is set to just show in that person’s friends news feeds, then only mutual friends will be able to see it if you promote it.
Facebook envisions that promoted posts will be used to draw attention to:
- Charity donations, events and raising awareness to various causes
- Personal announcements and congratulations (weddings, babies, new puppies, new jobs, cars, apartments etc
- Selling and renting offers, e.g. houses, cars and other goods
- Publicizing events to increase attendance
This feature is being rolled out gradually but will only be available to users with less than $5,000 friends or subscribers, presumably due to technical challenges.
How can you benefit from this feature if you are a business?
We are yet to see how Facebook pages can benefit from this feature.
One thing is for sure if you create engaging valuable content for your followers there is a greater chance that your posts will get promoted. And if someone is willing to spend $7 to promote your posts, then they are highly likely to also become your clients. So, have your eyes open and keep up the good work, be relevant and engaging.
Have you ever promoted your post?