Facebook made playing tag cool again. We’re speaking, of course of tagging and being tagged in photos. This social functionality may seem easy to take and easy to forget but like a gateway drug it cut a path for businesses to attempt to tap into more consuming behaviors from highly engaged Facebook users.

It is not the number of total users spread around the globe that matters to businesses. The total number of users may rationalize the $38 expected IPO share price but this number includes many casual users. And to a business attempting to leverage Facebook, the light user is nothing more than poser. “You on Facebook? Sure I am.” Likes on Facebook have become something akin to some measure of an individual’s self- worth. Huffington Post recently commented that the average number of likes per user is estimated to be somewhere between 225 and 250. What is the true “worth” of your likes? Here are the three highest represented segments.

31% High School or College Friends
30% never met, met once or not categorized
20% Family

Fond memories from college days aside, one could argue that having someone like you on Facebook that you have never met or can’t categorize is somewhat funny. And there’s the idiom “You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family.” We as a society have apparently added an asterisk to that phrase as in * excludes family on Facebook. If family members actually like each more now let’s just say that Facebook is indeed fun.

Consumers like free stuff. Facebook is severely challenging email as a communication channel with friends and family, sharing photos is a home run, single sign on is convenient and so on. The pay-off to the $104 billion question is going to be answered by how much business brands can generate from the platform. According to a recent S-1 Registration Statement Facebook claims that more than 4 million individual businesses have pages. Online, offline and mobile media vehicles all can point a user to the company’s Facebook page. Facebook Advertising is of course a logical addition to any media plan and critically important to the advertising supported platform. Advertising accounts for half the revenue, a small piece comes from gaming and a big chunk is categorized as other. We’ll be learning much more about the “other” revenue sources now that Mark Zuckerberg can no longer use his “being a private company has its benefits” line with investors.

There are two strategic questions every business is dealing with right now in determing where Facebook fits now and in the future of the overall marketing mix..

• Can I capture and hold my customers interest on Facebook?
• What is the true cost of acquiring and nurturing customers who like me on Facebook?

The answers to these lean heavily on analytics which have yet to catch up with the continued experimentation with Facebook advertising, sponsored stories and other proprietary media vehicles. The IPO means more aggressive ad selling is on the horizon. This will further challenge marketers who have yet to resolve how to properly execute coupons, sweepstakes and contests as methods of acquiring and maintaining the engagement level Facebook and other social media channels promise.

For the 4 million businesses on Facebook today, the metric is not how many likes they have or how they are categorized. It is going to be if they can determine how many like my brand enough to buy from me and how much was due to my efforts on Facebook. The dependency on the success of marketers is something that may cause some anxiety in the coming months with the Facebook executive team. Will the current ad supported model endure? The only constant is change so nothing should surprise us.