My Take on Facebook's "Promoting"

For the last week or so, I've seen so many Facebook Pages with status updates complaining that Facebook is "at it again..."  "making us pay for our fans to see our updates..."  "Please like this status updates so you will continue to get our updates...".  While I can kind of see the frustration, I really just don't get it.

On Facebook, you've never been able to see ALL the updates from ALL of the pages/friends that you like and/or have.  It would take forever!  For example: between all my personal friends and all the pages I have "liked" on FB, that would be well over 1000 updates for me to go through every day.  There's no way! You tend to see status updates from friends and pages that you interact with the most. So now, Facebook is allowing you to choose to "promote" a specific update on your page (this is for business/fan pages only; not for your personal page) for $5.00 to help you reach not only more of your already established fan base, but friends of your fan base.  Unless I've missed something somewhere, paying to increase your reach by promoting an update is optional.

Last week, I decided to try it out.  $5.00 isn't that big of a deal, and I wanted to see if it really made that much of a difference.  Yes. I could instantly see that my views/likes for that specific post skyrocketed.  I also gained one or two new fans.  I also got a few new views on my blog. But most importantly? The views in my Etsy shop that originated from Facebook?  THROUGH THE ROOF.  Seriously.  Like up by over 200%. I have never had that many Facebook views on Etsy the entire time I have had my shop open.  And on top of that?  I got 3 new orders in one day.  Now.  Whether or not those orders are from Facebook; I have no idea.  Nor do I really know that all those extra Facebook views were due to me paying $5.00 to promote one of my updates.  However, I do know that somehow, I got a ton of extra publicity in that 48 hour period.  So for me?  Paying that $5.00 was totally worth it.

Will I try it again? You betcha!!  I want to see if I get the same results as I did the first time.  And if I do, I will definitely start promoting my status updates on a regular basis.  $5.00 for over $100.00 worth of immediate sales (and how knows how much in sales down the road)? Totally worth it in my book.

So, Facebook? While everybody else seems to be steaming and muttering about these "new changes" and "policies requiring business pages to pay for their updates to be seen", I don't mind one bit.  I get it.  And for now, I really actually appreciate it.  You gave my little store quite a boost last week!!