Facebook has just announced that Facebook Offers and Promoted Posts are now available to all local US businesses. However, as of the time of this publishing, we had paid posts but not Facebook Offers on Planet Ocean's Facebook Page. So we're guessing these features are still rolling out and will be available to everyone sometime in June. Regardless of when you get them on your page they're both going to be great resources.

Facebook Offers...
These offers will work very similar to a Groupon or Google Offer. Creating an offer is completely free and extremely easy. This makes it obvious that Facebook Offers has the potential to be a very powerful tool, especially since it is utilizing the Facebook network. Your fans or people who have liked you will see your offer in their stream automatically and a post will be created on their stream if they claim the offer, meaning their friends will know about it as well. If you'd like to take a more direct approach at getting the word out, you can broadcast your offer by paying for an ad on Facebook Marketplace.

Here's a quick 2min video explaining how it all works.

With this type of freedom, Facebook's service has the potential to become competitive with the rest of the popular offer sites. So, how do you know if your page has offers available? Just look for the Offers button. If it's there, you are ready to start testing it and if not...you get to play the waiting game with us :)

Promoted Posts...
On the flip side, Promoted Posts aren't free. This is a feature being tested that allows users to pay up to $2 to have their post highlighted and posted more prominently above the more common posts of your friends.

This could be a cheap and useful way to get the word out about something new and important, as well as allow you to get more exposure for your brand. It's safe to say this will become a global Facebook feature in the near future.