Is Facebook really charging you for the 'Promote' link?

For the past couple of weeks, with the IPO of Facebook there seem to be a frenzy of 'FB is charging for this!' or 'If you want to still see my page's posts on your wall, Click the "Show..." link' and so on.

The first message I saw like that - seemed decently OK... but the frenzy that followed made me very suspicious. I did a little bit of my own investigation and the result is quite simple: Facebook didn't change anything... at lest not yet :)

The 'promote' button you see on your pages is a somewhat recent feature - and costs no money. It will simply display the post you choose to promote at the top of your own page wall for a week. That's all - is more like displaying a sign in your own store.

The 'Click on the... link otherwise you won't see my posts anymore' is - show should I put it? Your fans don't need to click on any links - once they Like your page, the 'Show in the newsfeed' box is automatically checked for them. In fact, making them go and check it again will have the opposite effect and it will also confuse the life out of them!

That's in a nutshell - for more details you can read this great article on the subjects of Facebook 'changes', including a short and eloquent description of the algorithm Facebook is using to display the billion of messages one is subscribed to these days.

Happy reading!