Facebook Charging $7 To Promote Status Updates

Does It Work?

October 05, 2012 by Kyle Benham

Congratulations, Facebook, 1 billion users continue to freely give you targeted information with an enormous value to advertisers around the world.

And you celebrate this feat by charging them?

In addition to launching a mediocre “chairs” video for their first ad campaign -- Facebook introduced a new promotional platform, allowing the user (you) to pay for status updates to reach more friends. Yes, you heard me correctly, the network that has stated 'it will always be free,' is now charging to promote your own messages.

So, how does it work?

Being a total social media geek, I had to immediately test the results for this new paid feature. I produced a video, wishing one of my clients, Jeff Davis, from The Barr Team a happy birthday.

Once the video was posted -- Facebook offered an option to share it with more of my friends (a sponsored update). The cost for this new feature was $7.

Facebook guides you through the process. Essentially, taking your credit card information to process the order.

And here are the stats:

From my Facebook page, only three people have clicked on this video 14 hours later. I paid $7 to have this status update completely fail. Thanks, Facebook. I'm sure it was due to my horrible copywriting skills, right?

Earlier this year, I wrote an article on how money-driven entrepreneurs often make irrational decisions. Mark Zuckerberg is far from money-driven, but it is apparent this tanking IPO is bringing power to some poor pivots.

Will you pay to promote a status update?

Let me get your thoughts on this new approach from Facebook.