Brands may soon be able to advertise in the news feeds of Facebook users who aren’t fans of their pages.
The social network revealed Tuesday that it will begin testing promoted posts that can reach people who haven’t “liked” a company’s Facebook Page.
“Starting soon, we are beginning a very small test that will allow marketers to promote Page posts to people beyond their fans in the news feed,” says Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta. “These ads may appear on both desktop and mobile.”
The ads will look like other brand’s ads in the news feed, but will be labeled as “sponsored,” Ta tells Mashable in an email. A screenshot of the ad shows an option to “like” a company’s Page in the top right hand corner of the post.
“We think this will make it easier for businesses to reach more people,” she says.
Currently, only fans who like a brand’s page receive its posts in their news feeds.
Last week, Facebook introduced new mobile ad units to help app developers market themselves. The units drive users to new apps to download in Apple’s App Store or Google Play.
Facebook says it has directed users to both app stores 146 million times through clicks from news feed, timeline, bookmarks and App Center.
In June, the social media giant introduced Sponsored Stories for the news feed that are specifically for mobile devices.
