Facebook this week started offering its most popular members, those who have more than 5,000 friends and subscribers, the chance to pay to promote their own status updates and get more visibility, VentureBeat has confirmed.

The quiet rollout marks an expansion to a pre-existing test of a sponsored stories extension called “Promoted Posts for People.” The highly followed members, however, will be paying a much larger premium to keep their updates featured in friends’ and subscribers’ News Feeds.

“We are continuing to test promoted posts in the U.S.,” a Facebook spokesperson told VentureBeat. “As part of this, we are opened up the test to enable people with 5,000 or more friends and subscribers to use the product. We are also continuing to experiment with different pricing models. The price of promoted posts is based on a number of factors, including the reach and the number of people you are promoting to.”

Launched in early October, the Promoted Posts for People test allows regular folks to advertise their own status updates. For about $7 a pop, members with less than 5,000 friends and subscribers can pay to promote posts to keep them higher up in the News Feed and ensure that updates are seen by a larger percentage of friends.

At the time, Facebook told us the feature was meant for personal use only, say promoting garage sales or wedding photos, hence the friends’ and subscribers’ limit. Now, the social network has had a change of heart, as it’s giving the feature — albeit at a marked-up premium — to the type of people anxious to capitalize on their huge audiences: journalists, celebrities, and web-famous personalities.

This journo, who has more than 484,000 Facebook subscribers, was quoted $49, or seven times the regular rate, to pay to promote one of her updates (pictured above). I initially balked at the idea on first offer, but the next time I have a great story that I want to send eyeballs too, perhaps I’ll reconsider.

It certainly makes sense that the social network would want to help its most-followed users better harness the attention of their subscribers (especially since regular Joes and Janes don’t seem all that jazzed by the opp). That we have to pay to do it is an ethical debate I’ll leave for another day.

Facebook photo via Shutterstock

Facebook recently introduced two consumer-facing products designed to help it bring in more dough. One looks to be a money-making bonanza, while the other seems to have flop written all over it.

Nearly 45 percent of respondents in a survey fielded by analyst firm Sterne Agee said they would consider purchasing and sending physical gifts to friends through the newly released Facebook Gifts product.

Sterne Agee surveyed more than 750 U.S. Facebook members, ages 18 and up, across various age groups and income levels, with a near equal split between men and women. In a phone interview with VentureBeat, firm analyst Arvind Bhatia expressed confidence in the sample as representative of Facebook’s larger adult user base..

“We believe [Gifts] is an area of tremendous opportunity for Facebook,” Bhatia and fellow analyst Brett Strauser concluded in their report on the survey findings. “This will allow Facebook to diversify its revenues away from advertising and should lessen the impact of the shift towards mobile.”

A closer look at the findings shows that a majority of those willing to consider using Facebook Gifts said they were just “slightly likely” to do so. Bhatia believes, because the product is new and not available to all members, that the survey results are encouraging.

Meanwhile, just 16 percent of surveyed Facebook members said they would pay to promote one of their own status updates using the Promoted Posts for People feature, which is still in testing. Worse still, only 1.2 percent of the respondent pool indicated that they would be willing to pay more than $5 for the feature. The pay-to-promote option, which allows regular users to sponsor their own content, costs roughly $7 per status update.

“While we see a significant opportunity for Facebook Pages to promote posts, we view the move into promoted posts for personal profiles as small,” the analysts concluded. “While the margins will be high, we think it’s unlikely for the promoted personal posts to move the needle in the near term.”

Overall, the firm felt very encouraged by the survey results, which also found that Facebook users are indicating equal levels of engagement with the social network compared to their usage six months ago.

Additionally, 77 percent of respondents who indicated that they were Facebook mobile users said they were moderately to extremely satisfied with the mobile experience. The same percentage of people haven’t noticed ads on mobile, which is a sign that the sponsored units are subtle and effective on mobile, the firm concluded.

Bhatia did point me to one troubling finding: 61 percent of respondents said the relevance of Facebook ads was about the same as it was six months ago.

“This is a concern for advertisers,” he said. “They’re advertising on Facebook because they’re hoping to get more targeted ads.”

Facebook declined to comment on this story.

You can find a copy of the report below.

Get out your pocketbooks, people.

Facebook today started offering some of its U.S. members a simple way to ensure that more of their friends see their super-important, can’t-miss status updates — that is, of course, if they’re willing to shell out cash for the privilege.

Dubbed “Promoted Posts for People,” the pay-to-promote feature allows regular users to sponsor their own social network content in the same way that advertisers pay for Sponsored Stories.

Facebook bumps up and places promoted posts higher in the News Feed to grab larger audiences. The additional exposure costs about $7 per status update, and the fee brings with it a breakdown on views achieved the old-fashioned way and additional views secured through payment.

“Every day, news feed delivers your posts to your friends. Sometimes a particular friend might not notice your post, especially if a lot of their friends have been posting recently and your story isn’t near the top of their feed,” Facebook software engineer Abhishek Doshi said in a blog post. “When you promote a post — whether it’s wedding photos, a garage sale, or big news — you bump it higher in News Feed so your friends and subscribers are more likely to notice it.”

The promote-a-post feature is now available to a small group of U.S. members who have less than 5,000 friends and subscribers. The hard limit intends to restrict this to personal use, a Facebook spokesperson told VentureBeat.

The U.S. expansion is part of an on going test that Facebook kicked off in New Zealand in May. The promote button, located below each just-posted update, is available to Facebook members in more than 20 countries.

The feature, while still in testing, essentially serves as an extra ad unit that may help the social network keep revenue in line with market expectations as it continues to sort out how it will profit on mobile. The move, however, could alienate members already overwhelmed by Sponsored Stories in the News Feed.