We heard recently that Facebook was testing the concept of charging business users to post but I didn't expect the real thing to arrive in the States so soon.
Facebook has launched a "Promote Your Page" feature in which it's asking members with business pages to pay extra to have their posts reach more of their fans. As Facebook writes:
"When you promote a post, it will be shown in the news feeds of more of the people who like your Page than you would reach normally. Friends of the people who have interacted with your post will also be more likely to see the story in their news feeds for up to 3 days from when the post was first created."
Pricing for this feature appears to be all over the map, with variations according to the number of fans you have, want to reach, when, where and in what language.
In our case with The Bakersfield Californian's fan page, on Tuesday night Facebook was asking us to pay $5 for every 1,100 fans we wanted to reach with a "promoted" post. This morning, that fee had changed to $5 for only 500 fans (up to $30 and 3,000 fans, or half of our fan base). On the Bakersfield Mom fan page, which has slightly more than 1,000 fans, Facebook's pricing this morning was $5 for 900 and $10 for 1,500.
Click to read more ...