Facebook changing out it's layout without warning to users has happened so many times now that it has become the butt of jokes. But what will the new Facebook changes mean for you and for your brand?

Under pressure from Google+, Facebook has rolled out some serious changes, including new privacy features such as being able to view your profile as anyone and enhanced friend list. The new news feed and introduction of the ticker add an additional layer of change.

To top that off, soon we will be seeing the "Timeline"


So what do all these changes mean for brands using Facebook to market? All Facebook wonders: "Will pages be able to reach their fans? Will it be worthwhile to spend ad money to build fan bases?"

And the answer is, it may. As it is currently, it appears that Facebook's new feed will be prioritizing posts that have a high engagement rate, fan pages with low engagement may have even more trouble reaching fans.

Perhaps the most important change to pay attention to is the introduction of GraphRank. As a part of EdgeRank, this new feature will primarily effect App usage. According to AllThingsD "Social discovery of apps is seen as the next frontier in solving the troublesome problem of finding useful and relevant programs from among hundreds of thousands of choices."

So what do you think of the new Facebook? Are you looking forward to Timeline? Are you considering joining the ranks of Facebook App developers? Let us know.

Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com