Facebook wants me to pay to share deals with you -- and what I'm doing about it

Some faithful readers over on the San Antonio Budget Grocery Facebook page may have noticed that it took me awhile to get deals up yesterday morning.

I thought my Facebook page was broken, but it turns out Facebook was uploading a new 'Promotable Posts' function to all community, business, and fan Pages.

Essentially, 'Promotable Posts' is a way for Facebook to make big $$ off these Pages -- they want small businesses and bloggers like me to pay per post in order to ensure access to readers' News Feeds.  In fact, Facebook is asking for anywhere from $5 to $100 per post so that you can see my deals on a regular basis.
The implication is that Pages who don't pay for 'Promotable Posts' will see their posts and links start sinking to the bottom of the Facebook News Feed, or maybe never even shared at all.

In fact, that appears to already be happening -- this morning, for example, the posts I shared for the HEB, La Fiesta, and Sprouts Farmers Market recaps only reached around 300 fans of the 2200 I have on my Facebook page.

So even though you may be a fan of the SABGE Facebook page, you may start seeing fewer and fewer deals for HEB, CVS, Walgreens, Target, and Walmart in your News Feed -- I just don't have the cash to bribe Facebook to get you access to my posts.

So while I get that Facebook is now a publicly traded company and needs to start, you know, making money off its product, I hate to think that the sense of community and sharing we've built up on the SABGE page might disappear.

But fear not -- we couponers know how to be resourceful when weird things happen, right?  So I've thought up some quick ways to ensure you still see all the great freebies and deals you expect from Spend Less, Shop More:

• Follow me on Twitter -- all links get posted there throughout the day!
• See the 'Follow by Email' box on the right-hand side of the page?  That lets you subscribe to the blog for free, and receive daily updates direct to your email each morning.  Or you can sign up here.  Keep in mind that you will receive an verification email that you must activate before the daily emails start -- that's to ensure nobody is getting on a list they aren't interested in.
• Add this site to your computer's bookmarks list, so you can check back at your convenience!
• When you're on Facebook, like or comment on every post of mine that you see -- that tells Facebook you want to see more posts from my Page going forward in your News Feed.
• Follow the blog on Networked Blogs or Google Friend Connect.

If you have any other great ideas on how to keep in touch, please share them in the comments section below -- I'm all ears!

Want more freebies and deals? Go back to the front page, follow me on Twitter, or keep up with all the action on Facebook.