Facebook quietly began introducing another way to encourage Page administrators to buy advertising in its performance ad system recently. Once you post a status update on your Page, you’ll see a new option beneath the update, only visible to you: the word “Promote.”

Clicking on it will reveal a window asking you if you’d like to buy advertising promoting the Page and the status update. The window shows the current targeting parameters of the ad, a mock-up of what the ad will look like once it’s live, the date range for when it will run, and the maximum cost.

The mock-up itself is what you’d expect: the name of the Page and a link to it, the status update itself in the body, and your personal Like of the page.

If you click “Create Ad,” you’ll be taken to the ad purchase page. If you click on “Edit Ad” you’ll be taken to the Facebook advertising creation tool, with Facebook’s preset parameters in already. You can then alter them to suit your purposes. If you’re not interested, of course, you can click “Cancel.”

The point is to get admins buying more ads in order to reach new or potential fans. Larger Page owners may prefer to use more scalable automated services for their advertising. Smaller ones, like local businesses, may find this useful though, as it could remind their Page admins to buy ads for particularly interesting status updates, such as coupons or sales.

If you’d like to learn more about how Page owners and advertisers can optimize their marketing campaigns Facebook, you may be interested in the Facebook Marketing Bible, our comprehensive guide for marketing your company, brand, or app on Facebook.

Thanks for the tip, Richard and Jeff.