No, not exactly. But – if you haven’t noticed it yet – there is a new option available to all business page owners when you write your next status update. It’s called Facebook Promoted Posts – “Promote your page posts so more people see them in their news feed.” Sounds great, right? But there’s a catch – you have to PAY to have those posts promoted. That does not sound so great.

Did you know… only 16 out of every 100 of your “fans” actually see your status updates?

If you haven’t seen the new update about Promotional Posts yet, you should soon. When you use Facebook as your page, and begin to write your status update, it will show you a pop-up bubble with the option to promote that post. If you click for details, it will then let you know that you’ll be paying for that chance to have your post seen by more of your own fans. This feature started as a test option, where personal users could pay to have their status updates shared more widely, but they quickly realized they would have better luck getting businesses to pay. I had a feeling that Facebook would soon start charging business owners more fees, but this was still pretty surprising. And personally, I think it’s a bad move – Here’s why:

• First, Facebook said that it wants brands to act more like people – interact with users, not advertise to them. They even have a rule that when you create the large banner image for your Facebook page, you cannot promote sales or deals – because the goal is to have pages to create good content, not ads. So – they will prevent you from using the graphic on your page as an ad, but will now allow you to treat the status updates that you post as ads, by paying to ensure that they are seen? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
• Why not just show all of my fans my posts anyway? If Facebook is serious about their stated goal of improving the user experience, then why do they hide my posts? When I like a brand or blog page, it’s because I’m interested in following their posts, and learning what they have to say. So why hide things from me that I chose to follow?
• Right now, Facebook shows your post to a limited amount of your fans – the average is 16%. How do they decide who to show it to? Well, they look at whether someone has interacted with your page before, whether the status update is popular {lots of likes and shares means Facebook will show it to even more people}, and what the content is {picture, video, links, etc}. They do this with a goal of giving you only updates that will be interesting to you. So why would they do the complete opposite, and allow people to pay to show me status updates that Facebook would not have shown me in the first place?

But, this is the way it is now, so I have to adapt. We all do. And, from what I’m hearing around the web, there will be a lot more changes coming soon too. {Isn’t there always a new change coming to Facebook? Ugh.}  While they still guarantee that Facebook will never charge people to use it, they WILL be adding quite a few more features that they can charge business owners to use. I hope the next ones are better than this.

If I wanted to pay for an ad, I would. I shouldn’t have to pay to have my status shown to people who have already chosen to like my page.

Well, now that we know what this new Promoted Posts tool is, let’s take a look at how it works, so you can take advantage of it if you choose to. I mean, like it or not, working on the web means constantly adapting to new changes. So – here’s some basic tips on using the new Promoted Posts function on Facebook.

1. Switch to use Facebook as your page, and click on the status update box, to start a new post. You’ll see a new button at the bottom of the box, labeled “Promote.”
2. Click the drop down menu arrow, and you’ll see options to set your price, payment method, and other settings.
3. Now, you can promote your post. You can also go to other previous posts {from the last 3 days only}, and add them to be promoted as well, within the budget amount that you have set up.

When the post appears in people’s newsfeeds, it will be labeled as sponsored. I’m not sure how bold the label will be, or whether it will appear more spammy looking to people. But – I can see the appeal to this option. We’ve all used Facebook for such a long time, that our eyes are trained to kind of ignore that side of the page where the ads are. Think about it – Can you remember any ads that you’ve seen lately? But you DO notice what’s in your newsfeed, so allowing brands to add their sponsored posts right into the stream you’re reading – right in between an announcement about your best friend’s new baby, and an upcoming graduation party for a niece, then the sponsored post is pretty darn likely to be actually looked at and read. This also helps with the mobile user problem – a growing percentage of people visit Facebook primarily from their cell phones, totally bypassing ads altogether. But now, brands have a new way to reach them.

What Facebook says about Promoted Posts

“Nothing has changed about how your posts are shared with the people who like your Page.” – Facebook.com A lot of activity happens on Facebook and most people only see some of it in their news feeds. They may miss things when they’re not on Facebook, or they may have a lot of friends and Pages, which results in too much activity to show all of it in their news feed. If you don’t promote your post, many of the people connected to your Page may still see it. However, by promoting a post, you’re increasing its potential reach so an even larger percentage of your Page audience and the friends of those interacting with your post will see it.

Do you “Like” this new update?

Is this tool something that you’ll use to promote your own posts? As a user, do you think you’ll be bothered by these sponsored updates in your newsfeed? I’d love to hear some comments on all sides of this issue – I’m still trying to figure out what I think about it all. And, if you’d like to learn more, you can visit the Facebook Promoted Posts FAQ page, and a little more about Facebook advertising and it’s always changing form.

Is Facebook Really Charging for Status Updates? Yep, but there’s more to it – sunshineandsippycups.com/2012/05/is-fac… #Facebook

— SunandSipCups (@SunandSipCups) May 23, 2012

{Photo credits: First photo, second photo.}