Facebook prompts users to buy their Valentine a gift, offers limited-time $1 gifts

Facebook is promoting its Gifts product at the top of News Feed today, encouraging users to buy their friends or significant other a real gift through its service. The social network also tested a number of $1 gifts for users to send as Valentines.

Users who are listed in a relationship are seeing messages that mention their partner by name. Some users have gotten prompts for specific friends or potential crushes. Others are seeing general notes about sending gifts to friends. These are similar to the promotions Facebook did during the holiday season a few months ago.

significant other

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The company added a number of new gifts for Valentine’s Day, including several types of themed candy for $5 or less. Some users saw limited-time offers for $1 gifts on Wednesday.

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The social network’s gift business is still quite small. Facebook made $5 million from non-game payments in Q4 2012. This includes gifts, but Facebook says it was predominantly from user Promoted Posts. By testing gifts at a range of price points, regularly introducing new inventory and prompting users with messages on their homepage, Facebook could give Gifts a bump. CFO David Ebersman said on Facebook’s earnings call last month that the company is still experimenting.

“The focus right now is to figure out what the right product is,” Ebersman said. “We think if done well, Gifts can be very natural and positive part of the Facebook experience.”

Gifts are currently only available to users in the U.S.

Second screenshot via Social Marketers, a private industry group for social marketing professionals.

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