Oh yeah, you can sponsor Facebook Posts straight from MPESA

Fredrick Ombako is our Economic Analyst. Back in October 2016 he raised an issue about sponsored posts on Facebook on which he remarked that Facebook needs to find a way of incorporating MPESA as one of the payment options available for Kenyans – and many of his Facebook friends, including myself, agreed. However, none of those friends myself included knew that actually there is a way you can sponsor Facebook Posts straight from MPESA.

A little background is necessary before I tell you how I discovered that one can sponsor Facebook posts straight from MPESA, although you will have to forgive me – it is actually not that straight. In the last part of December 2016 I badly needed to sponsor my new found hobby – Photography – so I called my close buddy and business partner Fred (not Ombako) and asked him to load his Nakumatt card with sufficient funds to enable the sponsorship. He did. He then gave me the card’s details. They didn’t work.

The next step was to find a way of getting money to my PayPal. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? I simply needed to find a friend with some dollars on PayPal, ask him to send me the dollars to my PayPal, then I could send him equivalent amount in shillings to his MPESA. I tried Kachwanya of Kachwanya.com and Sam Wakoba of TechMoran.com but none had cash on PayPal at the moment. But Sam asked me to try Chura.co.ke. That’s how I discovered that is is quite easy and convenient to sponsor Facebook posts straight from MPESA.

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Chura.co.ke is basically your Airtime and Money portal. For example, it is easier to buy Airtel Airtime through MPESA using Chura.co.ke than using PesaPal. At Kachwanya.com I wrote about how one can buy Airtel Airtime using MPESA, and today I am saying you are better off doing the same via Chura.co.ke for the simple reason that Chura.co.ke has taken complete advantage of the recently opened MPESA API.

As a Money Portal, Chura.co.ke allows you to receive money from PayPal straight into your MPESA. On the other hand, Chura.co.ke also allows you to send money from MPESA directly to your PayPal account – and although the entire process is expected to take up to 2 minutes, the automation actually works in a second or two. That is, if you use Chura.co.ke to either receive from or send money to PayPal, the transaction will be instantenous – and that’s why the title of this article is not a click bait.

So how do you go about sponsoring Facebook Posts straight from MPESA?

  • Foremost, you need to have a Facebook Page. There are friends who have asked me how one can sponsor Facebook Posts straight from their personal Facebook accounts. Sadly that’s not possible. Actually, if you are using your Personal Facebook account to promote your business, you are violating Facebook’s terms and conditions of use. You need to create a Facebook Page for your business, and use it to promote or sell your goods or services.
  • Once you have set up the Facebook Page, with all relevant details filled in properly, your next step is to open a PayPal account – that is if you don’t have one already. This is easy. Just go to PayPal.com and create an account – all you need is an email address. Alternatively download the App from your respective stores and follow instructions on how to create PayPal accounts. This shouldn’t take more than a half a minute.
  • You don’t need to load the PayPal account with money immediately. You can now create your first Facebook Post on your new or existing Facebook Page. After publishing the Post, you will see a Boost Button below the post. Click on it.
  • Follow the Boost procedure and under Payment options, choose PayPal. This step will allow you to link your Facebook Page to your newly created or existing PayPal Account.
  • Choose the amount you want to spend on the ad and the number of days and then Boost. Your Facebook Post will now be sponsored.
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Facebook does not bill you immediately for sponsored posts. The billing will be done either at month end or when you have reached your billing limit, which for first timers should be around $25. Once it is time for Facebook to bill you, you better have money on your PayPal Account.

To load your PayPal account with Money through MPESA:

  • Go to Chura.co.ke,
  • Choose Money (it is a green link left to Airtime) at the top of the Page,
  • Then choose MPESA to PayPal.
  • In the next page after clicking Go to service button you will be required to enter the amount you want to send to your PayPal in dollars and the system will let you know the amount in Kenya Shillings it will deduct from MPESA.
  • You will then be required to enter both your PayPal and MPESA details,
  • Then you will enter confirm the details and the system will execute a transfer from your MPESA to PayPal.
  • Be ready to enter a special MPESA PIN that you can create any time.
  • The instructions on Chura.co.ke and on MPESA are rather straight forward in case I lost someone.

After you have finished transferring money to PayPal, it will take roughly two seconds for the money to be reflected on your PayPal account.

Thus, with Chura.co.ke working together with PayPal and MPESA, you surely do not need to buy a credit/debit card in order to sponspor Facebook Posts. Actually, with Chura.co.ke working on both MPESA and PayPal, you do not need a credit/debit card, least a bank, to do any International purchases from portals like eBay, Amazon, etc – all you need is money on your MPESA and the know how of transferring that money to PayPal – of course now you know.

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If you have any questions on how to use MPESA with PayPal, kindly contact Chura.co.ke through their help line number which 0704 981 897. Enjoy great business opportunities presented on Facebook.

Odipo Riaga
Managing Editor at KachTech Media
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