Are you armed and ready for the big change on March 30, 2012? Or still trying to learn what “Timeline” actually means? No matter your situation, this guide will help you decipher upcoming changes to your brand’s Facebook page.

Life was easy before social media. Your conversations with clients either stayed behind office doors, on the phone or a paper trail. Then email came into the picture with forwarding options and now Facebook (dare I say it?) with commenting on brand pages.

Whether you’re executing a highly strategized social media plan packed with marketable content or simply testing the waters by creating a static Facebook page to secure a piece of online real estate for future use, allowing comments on your brand page comes into question.

Facebook has become a favorite in the communication toolbox for every industry from art to oil & gas. It’s even become a best friend to online marketers, sticking by our side with insights, demographics and targeted segmenting as we defend it in the executive office. So why now is it acting like a distant cousin?

Aimed to educate small businesses on how to “acquire and retain customers, build a community around their business, and reach new customers,” Facebook plans to provide 200,000 businesses across the country with a $50 boost in ad credits beginning January 2012.

That’s $10 million worth of free Facebook advertising that can possibly force your company to reevaluate its digital advertising budget!

With merely 9.2 million small businesses already advertising (of the 30 million registered in the United States), Facebook may cause your online ad budget to shift a tad. So what does this mean to your business? Increase in advertising costs? Inundated promotion of like services and products?

Being avid advertisers on Facebook, large businesses are left asking questions:

With the most recent and rumored changes to Facebook, the value of well-targeted and worthwhile content has increased. And the opportunity to determine “interesting news, any time you visit” has users weeding out boring, useless content.

This should have you wondering, “Will our content make the cut?”