Awhile ago, Facebook rolled out “promote your post” for business pages. Many of us with such pages were a little frustrated, fearing that Facebook would penalize those of us who could not or would not pay. But, Facebook assured us this would not be so. Now, a week or so ago, some of us noticed a large decrease in the number of people who were seeing our pages. Now, only about 1/7 of my Facebook fans are actually able to view my posts! A few weeks ago, almost 1/2 of my fans were able to view my posts. Obviously, this is a large decrease an I’ve noticed a decrease in my overall blog traffic as a result. I’m frustrated by Facebook saying one thing and doing another.

But, that’s not what is REALLY ridiculous. Today, Facebook introduced “pay to promote” your PERSONAL page! You can now pay $7 to promote your status across Facebook. Seriously?! Who is THAT narcissistic? I may not agree with how Facebook is handling the business pages, but I can see why people would pay to promote them, especially businesses that aren’t blogs. For the life of me, I can not see what you’d have to gain by promoting your personal page. Isn’t the point of them to be personal? For your friends and family? While some people may try out the feature, I can’t see Facebook making much money off of this. I also wonder if it will go the way of the business pages and make it more difficult for friends to see my posts and interact with me.

What do you think? Is this a feature you are going to use? Or do you agree that Facebook has kind of jumped the shark on this one? Will any money they make be worth potential negative press?