Social media message composition

A system comprising:

• one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
• providing a message composition interface to a user associated with a social messaging platform, wherein the message composition interface includes a first region for receiving message content, a first graphical element to post a composed message to the social messaging platform, and a second graphical element to request that the composed message be associated with a promotion prior to posting the composed message to the social messaging platform;
• receiving, a request to associate a promotion with a message composed in the first region, wherein the request comprises setting a user specified promotion value;
• in response to the request,
• computing, for the composed message, an engagement score for each user in a pool of users, wherein the engagement score for each user indicates a likelihood that the user will engage with the composed message, and wherein the engagement score is calculated using one or more social signals;
• selecting candidate users from the pool of users, wherein each of the candidate users possesses an engagement score greater than a specified threshold value;
• and
• selecting a plurality of target users from the candidate users, wherein the selection is based on the user specified promotion value and the respective engagement scores of the candidate users, wherein the number of users in the selected plurality of target users is based on the respective engagement scores;
• and
• receiving a user confirmation of the promotion, and in response, posting the message composed within the message composition interface and associated with the promotion on the social messaging platform including associating the message with accounts of one or more of the selected target users.

One or more computer storage media encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that are operable, when executed by data processing apparatus, to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising:

• providing a message composition interface to a user associated with a social messaging platform, wherein the message composition interface includes a first region for receiving message content, a first graphical element to post a composed message to the social messaging platform, and a second graphical element to request that the composed message be associated with a promotion prior to posting the composed message to the social messaging platform;
• receiving, a request to associate a promotion with a message composed in the first region, wherein the request comprises setting a user specified promotion value;
• in response to the request,
• computing, for the composed message, an engagement score for each user in a pool of users, wherein the engagement score for each user indicates a likelihood that the user will engage with the composed message, and wherein the engagement score is calculated using one or more social signals;
• selecting candidate users from the pool of users, wherein each of the candidate users possesses an engagement score greater than a specified threshold value;
• and
• selecting a plurality of target users from the candidate users, wherein the selection is based on the user specified promotion value and the respective engagement scores of the candidate users, wherein the number of users in the selected plurality of target users is based on the respective engagement scores;
• and
• receiving a user confirmation of the promotion, and in response, posting the message composed within the message composition interface and associated with the promotion on the social messaging platform including associating the message with accounts of one or more of the selected target users.