Promoted personal posts just might kill Facebook
I have long defended Facebook to friends and colleagues as a free service that allows us to connect with far-away family and long lost friends. I’ve also thought that nothing yet created had the potential to truly compete.
Now it seems Facebook can only think of ways to make itself more attractive to analysts rather than its loyal users.
I can accept promoted posts and ads from businesses because the service needs to pay for itself and the ads are really not that intrusive. What I cannot accept is the idea that my Facebook friends can now advertise their posts to me. How strange and useless. I see their posts anyway.
I have no interest in using Facebook anymore (except when I have to for my profession) if personal connections pay to have their posts highlighted. Maybe that’s a bit drastic, but that’s not the service I signed up for. I’m guessing I’m not alone.
For $7 any user can now promote her most recent post. How obnoxious. What will it even look like? Will friends know if a post is paid for? I don’t know, but I’m going to test it by promoting this article. Yes, I’m aware of the irony, but I’ll consider it research. I really hope this option goes the way of many tested features Facebook has gotten rid of.
I did actually read an article by Tech Crunch that shared one compelling use case for this feature. Judge for yourself.