With Facebook users nearing to 1 billion mark, and the users' friends list increasing day-by-day, there are chances that one might miss a close friend's latest engagement announcement or a birthday party invite or a sudden job shift to another country.
To avoid such hassles and to put one's story on top of a friend's feed, Facebook on Wednesday released 'Promote' feature to a small group of US users on experimental basis. While using this latest feature, the users need to pay a fee.
The new attribute is another way for Facebook to generate revenue. Apart from this feature, the company recently unveiled a feature where users can buy and send real gifts such as cakes, cards and the like to their friends.
The 'promote your posts' feature has been started as a test run for which FB is charging $7 per post from its users. But the company has not given a final intimation on the price and whether they will be expanding this feature to more countries.
Though the testing was first started in New Zealand in May, it is for the first time available for US users. The feature is also restricted right now to those with less than 5,000 friends and subscribers.
The paid postings will be visible on the desktop and mobile versions of the social network. If one is among the participants selected for the trial run, one will notice a 'Promote' link in each post. It could be found next to the 'Share,' 'Comment,' and 'Like' buttons. When the user selects 'Promote,' a box will pop up confirming the price that he/she likes to get charged for the content. Then by selecting 'Pay to Promote' option, the user can finalize the purchase.
Once a post is promoted, they are then tagged as 'Sponsored,' and while clicking on this tag, it will display the post's reach like how many views it has got.
Facebook will place the paid-for postings towards the top of people's newsfeeds which will stay visible for longer period of time to more number of friends and subscribers.
The social networking site is still uncertain about the users' response as this new feature might be a turn off for people who could not afford to shell out extra bucks.
Facebook also sites out some advantages for using promoted posts. This facility can be used by people looking for roommates in their friend networks, for the sale of properties, promotion of events, fund raising for political or charitable causes and sharing news updates about jobs and opportunities to name a few.
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