Social network giant Facebook is currently testing a new scheme that where you pay to have your status update promoted. With the new system you pay Facebook a small fee to have a status update you’ve chosen appear on Facebook more prominently.
The pay to promote system is already being tested in New Zealand although some people have claimed that it is also running concurrently in a few other countries. At this point, Facebook has not released any statements on whether it plans to expand it to its other markets or even to continue with this new payment system.
Facebook hopes to anchor the idea of Facebook Highlight on the presumption that people will be willing to fork over a little cash to make some of their status updates stickier in the feeds of their friends. The usual Facebook algorithm is that posts from a user’s closest Facebook friends or posts from people in the wider social graph that have elicited a significant number of likes or comments will be emphasized in the user’s wall. With Facebook Highlight, users can pay Facebook to shift that emphasis on their own posts automatically. The status update will stay in the news feed of their friends far longer without having to go through the algorithm mentioned. This means the status update will automatically be seen by more people compared to letting the Facebook algorithm do its work.
Facebook is toying with different price points for the service – from 40 cents to $2. According to Facebook, it is testing the different pay levels so it also reflects on the different ways a post can be made more visible. This even includes ways on making a post visible for free.
Originally posted on May 15, 2012 @ 9:42 pm
