One of the biggest decisions a small business must make lies in the question of where to spend money. Advertising is necessary to get out in front of your audience, and in today’s time of social media there are more options than ever before. From Facebook to Twitter and everything in between even analyzing where to start with advertising can be time consuming and at times overwhelming.

First there was the Facebook fan page that businesses could set up for free–which is always nice–as a place to put information about their business and attempt to connect with their target market. One of the catches with Facebook fan pages is that you actually have to put forth the effort to get people to like your page & interact–not the worst scenario, but it can become a lot to deal with for an often busy small business owner. Now it has been announced that not all of the fans for your page may even be seeing the posts you take the time to post–instead Facebook now offers promoted posts that promise to be shown to more of your fans, at a fee.

In recent times with Facebook facing a few issues regarding their stock prices and the massive value drops after their initial public offering they now seem more focused then ever on paid marketing options, there has even been chatter about business fan pages having fees assessed, other than just for promoted posts. Fees for a business Facebook fan page would likely cause more than a few business owners to step back and look at how helpful their fan page has been in boosting business–putting Facebook marketing strategies in the bag of paid advertising along with phonebook ads.

Not only is Facebook talking about charging for business fan pages, they are also now trying to get businesses to advertise on the site. This may sound like a good idea and it does work for some businesses, but a Reuter’s poll taken over the summer showed that four out of five Facebook users have never purchased a product as a result of advertising or comments on the site. Regardless of if marketing products on Facebook works, the social media site is pushing the idea of its site leading to purchases with the addition of a new “collections” feature rolled out earlier this month in which fans of a page can “like”, “want”, or “collect” a brands product with the option to then purchase it. For now, this “collections” feature is free, so if you plan to give it a try this is probably the time–if past behavior is any sign, this new feature won’t remain free forever.