Facebook has introduced new audience options through the ‘Promote’ button on page posts so that pages can now indicate whether they want to reach just existing fans or both fans and their friends.

Previously, page owners who clicked “Promote” would see a message saying, “Get more people who Like your page to see this post.” If page owners dug into the Help Center, they would learn that Promoted Posts would also be seen by a larger percentage of the friends of people who interact with the post. Now Facebook has made this clearer by offering the audience option, as well as allowing page owners to pay for reach that is higher than their total fan count.

Promoted Posts make it easier for page owners to create ads directly from their posts. These are ideal for expanding the reach of a given piece of content, and are less about increasing a page’s Likes. Page owners cannot select demographic or interest targeting from the Promoted Posts module, but if they use the new post targeting options when they create the post, it will be applied to the paid campaign as well. We’ve heard about some users encountering errors when trying this, however.

When pages pay for Promoted Posts, fans will see the posts in their News Feed in the same format as they would organically, but with a “Sponsored” label. When a fan Likes, shares or comments on a Promoted Post, some of the person’s friends will see a Sponsored Story about the action in their mobile or desktop feed. Page admins who select “people who like your page and their friends” as their audience for Promoted Posts will see two separate ads within a campaign in their ad dashboard.

Promoted Posts are done on a cost per impression basis. The cost per reached fan seems to vary by page, but Facebook has not commented on what factors may influence price. This feature began being tested at the end of April and rolled out to all pages with 400 to 100,000 Likes a month later.