I do believe small brands can get more ROI using social media than wasting their money on digital ads.
Matthew Inman posted about this https://twitter.com/Oatmeal/status/923250055540219904
As an aside, this also reflects on the honesty of their ad campaign about supporting small business. If they really cared about small business they wouldn't make them pay to reach the audience they created on their platform.
Anyway paying FB's mafia style extortion probably isn't the solution.