Avoid Getting Charged on your Facebook Fanpage Timeline Usage

So the biggest question on the radar “Is Facebook Really Charging for Status Updates on your fanpage(s) Now?”… 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 after all…

Promoted Posts gives page owners the ability to pony up cash to to promote new status updates to their Facebook fans. Pretty clever on Facebook’s part – they use EdgeRank to minimize user engagement with fan pages, then charge page owners a fee to increase exposure to their existing user base. It looks like the price range for promoting posts is between $5.00 and $300.00. This is being rolled out, so all pages wont have access to it just yet.

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

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 facebook fanpage 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.

Watch the “Powerful” training on how you can make sure your status updates are always in your facebook fanpage subscribers news feed

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.

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Janelle McLeod is a Social Media Manager and very passionate about sharing information and helping others to boost their business, brand, and online presence to the next level. She is a top producer and a documented super sponsoring machine in the internet marketing and network marketing industry. She is known for her high standards, morality and his down-to-earth yet "no-nonsense" approach to making money online. She has worked with several hundreds of marketers, small business, and independent contractors & so forth and has coached countless people on the marketing skills and techniques required to generate real income online! If you have not already connected with Janelle, come out from under your rock and let her help you get your business off to a massive start ALL online NOW! Connect with me on Facebook and on Twitter .

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