Facebook now allows friends to promote your posts

Facebook has announced a new feature that people very keen on privacy may not like. The new feature allows your friends to promote your posts even if you don't give them permission. The new option will allow your friends to pay to promote your posts and have the post seen by more people. The idea is that if you're trying to raise money for a worthy cause or have another important announcement your friend can get it in front of more people that you know.

Apparently, there are some privacy considerations taken into account when allowing your friends to promote your posts without your permission. The feature allows your posts to be promoted to people who like your page or people who like your page and their friends. Like the existing Promoted Posts feature, this allows your friends to put your posts into the timeline feeds the people that might not have seen them otherwise.

The price to promote a post varies depending on your area and how many people might see it. The price seems to average somewhere in the area of $7-$10. Facebook is beginning a gradual rollout of the new feature this week. There are some caveats on who the feature will be available to.

Facebook users must have less than 5000 total friends and subscribers to access the feature. If your friend or page meets that condition, the drop-down arrow next to a post will have the option to sponsor it. The way that privacy settings work is if the page for the person whose post you want to promote is set to only allow friends to view it, only more of their friends will be able to view it when you promote the post, in other words no strangers.

[via TechCrunch]