Facebook Opens News Feed to Targeted Brand Posts

Facebook on Wednesday rolled out a new feature that lets brands target users for status updates that don't appear on their brand Pages.

The intent is to let brands target a subset of customers without alienating other members of its customer base. For example, a sporting goods brand could run a post appealing to basketball fans. While the post wouldn't appear on the brand's Page, it would run in the News Feed of fans who have an affinity for the sport. Other scenarios include a telecom carrier that wanted to target possible switchers (perhaps fans who have shown an interest in a new model of phone) rather than send a more general branding message to its overall fan population. Finally, the unit can be used for A/B testing of ads.