Facebook expands ‘pay to promote’ test, lets more users highlight posts

If you feel like your Facebook posts aren’t getting enough attention, a solution may be at hand.

The biggest blue social network is expanding a programme that gives people the chance to pay to have their posts highlighted. The service has been available to some New Zealand users since May.

Now users from around the world are reporting that they’ve also been given the option.

Speaking to The Next Web, a Facebook spokesperson said the tests were primarily designed to see how interested people are in the service:

We are expanding a test that started last May that enables people to pay to promote a status update so that more friends may see it in their news feed. We’re constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends.

A screencast from The Manufacturing Revolution shows the offering priced at €3.06 (US$4.04). That’s about double the US$2 people were getting charged in the initial test. It is however, a fair whack less than the US$6.30 a user on Hacker News was reporting. It also shows the various payment options, including Visa, mobile phone, PayPal, Beanfun, MyCard, Alipay, Western Union and JoinCard.

While the variety of prices suggests that Facebook could be testing out different options for different regions, it also hints at the fact that it might be seeing just how much people are willing to pay to get more eyes on their posts.