Facebook has filed for an initial public offering hoping to raise in the neighborhood of $10 Billion. The IPO would value the social network between $75 – 100 Billion. In US stock market history, this puts the launch ahead of Google in size, with only Visa, General Motors, and ATT Wireless coming out with larger first day totals.

27 year old founder Mark Zuckerberg stands to benefit to the tune of an estimated $21 – 28 Billion, dependent on how the market interprets financials showing a $1 Billion profit on Revenues of $3.7 Billion, 85% of which came from advertising. Facebook measurements are largely all bigger than life, as the user base is reported to have reached 845 million users globally. Many of these users are part of the Millennial generation and have grown up accustomed to sharing detailed aspects of their daily lives with their networked friends.

Amidst the eye-popping numbers, Mr. Zuckerberg’s business perspective, as shared in the company’s S1 filing, were especially interesting. He highlighted the importance of personal relationships as being “a fundamental unit of our society”, and made clear that a key objective for Facebook is to help “extend people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.”

The letter went on to share Zuckerberg’s view on the future of our relationship society, that “the world’s information infrastructure should resemble the social graph – a network built from the bottom up or peer to peer, rather than the monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date.”

Reading between the lines, it seems that we’ve taken another big step away from the command and control organizational structure of the 60’s and 70’s. If Facebook has its way, we are rapidly evolving towards a wholly populist world.  At first, it was “Me, Inc.”, then we became “Free Agents”, now it’s going to be every man or woman for his/herself. Hopefully it does not result in anarchy.

Facebook of course paints this evolutionary process in a highly positive light, pointing towards the resulting “stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services” as the result of this movement.

Ironically, the instant poll at the bottom of the article revealed 42% of the 1,500-odd people which had voted at that time stating they are spending less time on Facebook now than one year ago. Apparently, all of this sharing is tiring some people out.

Sharing, fatigue and anxiety may all go hand in hand as a blog posted by a Facebook employee chronicled the importance of Facebook to every aspect of Millennial life, but worried a bit about loss of privacy, stating that “Facebook also has made us paranoid”.

How the human spirit adapts to a non-stop world of sharing is the ultimate question that will be decided over the next few years. The outcome will not only impact the market value of a more mature Facebook in the market, but also how marketing in general and social loyalty in particular evolves in the digital age.

Loyalty is Social and American Express knows it.

The credit card issuer launched its “Social Currency” campaign back in March and I have to admit that upon first review, I thought it was more show than go. Since that time, the multiple campaigns launched in market with partners including Foursquare, SCVNGR, and Facebook validate their commitment to incorporate digital tools and redefine cardholder perception of card based rewards programs.

The original ads that proclaimed Membership Rewards Points to be a Social Currency inspired my imagination of what they might offer. Would they enable points to be used with a check-in, at point-of-sale to complete a transaction, or to facilitate P2P payments between card-holding friends? The first offers weren’t quite this imaginative, being limited to cardholders being able to shout out their favorite use of points on the company’s Facebook page and offering its version of “deal of the day” with special offers on redemption items.

Nothing wrong with either of these, but I was hoping that the concept of “Social Currency” would evolve and fulfill the idea in earnest, rather than becoming another “Blue Card”, i.e. a smart (chip) card with more sizzle than substance.

My suspicion and skepticism has been gradually swept aside as Amex announced its merchant based test with Foursquare at SXSW and later took the check-in deals nationwide.

More recently, Amex teamed up with SCVNGR and Levi’s to create the first paperless daily deal redemption system. Using Amex’s Smart Offer Engine, the same one used to support the Foursquare promotions, cardholders can sync their SCVNGR LevelUp account with their Amex account and use daily deal coupons in real-time without having to print a coupon. That by itself should drive consumer engagement based on curiosity over an innovative and easy to use rewards delivery system.

To top it off, Amex now lets cardholders cash in their Membership Rewards Points to buy advertising on Facebook. Incorporated as a benefit in its Open Network, real business value is offered to small to medium businesses. Reports disclose that $6,750 equivalent of points buys a $50 Facebook ad, meaning a conversion rate valuing points around 70 basis points. Regardless of how you feel about the exchange rate, the new option allows business people to get something useful for their business for free and differentiates Amex from other card issuers.

Amex used the tagline “We live in a world of possibilities. Isn’t it time we had a social currency to match?” to introduce the concept of Social Currency.  What they unlocked at the same time was the consumer’s imagination as to the many new ways points can be used to gain rewards.

American Express may have also changed the way we look at credit cards. Millions of people desired an iPhone, not to make calls, but for the available apps and the cool things they would do for you.

Today, many people “don’t want another credit card”.  Through the multiple campaigns and partnerships introduced by Amex this spring, consumers they might want an Amex card for the “many cool things” that Membership Rewards will do for them.

Shopping has always been a social activity, shared between people, so pairing “Social” with “Shopping” shouldn’t define anything that we don’t intuitively understand.

Except that it does.

Social Shopping is a term with different meanings depending on who’s talking and what they are selling. The mainstream definition of Social Shopping from a web point of view is the move of E-commerce activity from corporate websites to social networks. Facebook Deals and Google Boost are two well known examples, and Facebook Credits has been touted by some as the future of online payments.

We define Social Shopping in a different context in our recently released white paper on the subject. The paper may be downloaded from the Wise Marketer (free registration required) and soon will be available from the Hanifin Loyalty site.

Despite the definitions of Social Shopping described in this paper, many people define the term in the context of Facebook. The forecast is for E-commerce to become F-commerce, meaning the shopping carts and related activities currently taking place on corporate websites will shift to Facebook Fan pages.

Some go so far as to predict that the payment methods for F-commerce will become Facebook centric as well, with Facebook Credits becoming a more powerful “way to pay” for online purchases from pizza to shoes.

We prefer to define Social Shopping as something broader than F-commerce. In our book, F-commerce is just one aspect of the equation. In fact, one could argue that F-Commerce is simply an added channel through which to execute “good-ole” E-commerce.

Building “on platform” sales on Facebook is the most significant and attainable aspect of F-commerce for most retailers. With so much traffic building on the social network, merchants want to avoid having to ask customers to take the increasingly big and undesirable step of switching from Facebook to the marketer’s site to complete a purchase.

Delta, Pizza Hut, 1-800 Flowers and others have placed significant bets on technology to support transactions on their Facebook pages. Just last week, Express announced that it was putting its entire product catalog on Facebook so that its nearly 840,000 friends could go shopping without having to leave the site.

To date, most of the F-commerce taking place is based on “real” currency and migrating the payment method to using Facebook Credits is a higher hurdle to clear. Facebook will undoubtedly find it easier to get shoppers to purchase stuff in Farmville with Facebook Credits, but we question the benefits of selling airline tickets or pizza with the alternate currency.

In addition to the need to educate the public and build confidence in its reliability, Facebook will have to examine its fee structure for Credits. As announced initially, the transaction costs appear to be much higher than the merchant discount rates currently under attack via retail merchant lobbies and subject to reduction from the Durbin amendment. To introduce an online alternative currency has promise, but to choose a starting point for fees that represents higher costs to merchants does not.

Watching the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics kickoff their playoff series this weekend, I saw the latest in gratuitous advertising from a beer company, in this case Miller Light.

I’m not sure if I should be complemented or insulted that I’m among the demographic targeted by the ads. Consistent with past campaigns, Miller clearly trades on the concept that every guy watching the NBA playoffs on a Sunday afternoon is totally defenseless against the sight of 3 girls in bikinis.

If influencing consumer behavior through marketing was this easy, then the entirety of the Loyalty Marketing industry has been wasting its time for the past 30 years. Anyway, I was debating whether to hit the mute or pause button on my TIVO controller, when they wrapped up the spot with a graphic that shouted “Tastepoints.com“.

It smelled like a points based loyalty program to me and I went to the website to check it out.

Surprisingly, this is what I found. Basically, nothing. Nothing that is, except the opportunity to view the bikini girls again and hit the “Get Started Now” button. It is revealing that Miller decided that allowing consumers to connect with their Facebook credentials was the only way to join the program.

Facebook executives must be delighted over this leading indicator that big consumer brands have capitulated to the idea that Facebook is, in fact, the internet. You might still be debating whether Al Gore invented the internet, but it’s almost a fact that Mark Zuckerberg owns it now.

The fact that Miller didn’t even invest in a landing page offering some program basics, FAQ’s and provide alternative paths to enrollment (email, Twitter at least) speaks loudly. I had to search for the Miller press release to learn the details of how Tastepoints works. Marketers need to pay attention to the implications of this approach to execution by Miller.

Clicking through the “Get Started Now” button, I was presented with the now familiar option to allow an application to connect to my Facebook page, authorize it to have access to my information, be able to post on my wall, and other privileges that I don’t fully understand.

I’ll bet many people immediately authorize the connection shown in the graphic here, just as they mindlessly check “ok” on software license user agreements without ever reading them. The question is, do we really know what we are giving up just to play the Tastepoints game? I don’t understand the nuances of these permissions well enough, and will make that task a personal homework assignment over the next few weeks. If anyone really gets it, please drop a comment to this post.

The bottom line is that Miller took a risk by managing its program enrollment through a single channel, and may have put a dent in its customer engagement strategy. If enough consumers have Facebook accounts (high probability in their targeted demographic) and are willing to blithely give away access to that account (how trusting are we after recent announcements of data breaches?), then it might work out in Miller’s favor.

The risk of this strategy could still be mitigated by taking time to provide more information about the program upfront, and to allow alternate paths to enrollment. Why Miller chose this approach should make an interesting debate for all marketers interested in building social loyalty.

Communication is at the center of human interaction. Marketers are well aware of the importance of communication and it’s no surprise that customer engagement, customer experience, and lifecycle management are  popular keywords today. We have to communicate well to engage our customers and to deepen relationships over time.

Marketers have plenty of collected data residing behind multiple firewalls. The opportunity remains to put this data to use and drive more effective communications. The trouble is, as we’ve been accumulating customer data, the target just shifted. There are more channels than ever that we can use to communicate with our customers and it’s a big challenge to understand customer preferences by channel.

The essential question remains: How do we communicate effectively with our customers?

If that sounds like a theoretical or just plain dumb question, consider this:

Email is the new postal service. Come rain, shine, or snow, it’s the core communication vehicle for most people. Of course when the “cloud” has a stormy period and outages occur, business grinds to a sudden halt.

Meanwhile, conversations are sparked through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, and the occasional comment stream in a corporate blog.

Where conversations start says a lot about where they should best be maintained. I don’t know if this is scientific, but it sure is practical.

LinkedIn messaging is often indicative of newly formed relationships. Sometimes though, we get messages, invitations, and read questions from trusted friends who prefer to communicate within this social network, and it takes effort to move the stream to email.

The same thing happens in Facebook. For those who consider their Facebook page as their entry point to the internet, conversations flourish “on the wall”.

Direct messages in Twitter often deliver the substance that some people think is otherwise lacking in the microblogging format. Information is shared that would (should) never be in the public timeline, making it a great vehicle to collect opinions of high reliability.

Closer and more personal connections tend to share via SMS, and there are folks who leave their favorite IM package open all day in substitute for SMS. Conversations as well as file transfers are facilitated. Skype is becoming more powerful in this area.

The simple act of setting up a meeting these days carries with it an overhead factor that is fueled by channel choice. “Overhead” is defined as the time required to organize call participants, set up conference lines, confirm with everyone, and then remain flexible to accommodate fluid schedules. Think about how much time and effort you have spent to organize your last few conference calls. Not the recurring sales call on Monday morning, the call with the newly formed project team or with a prospective client or partner. I’ll bet 20-30 minutes could be absorbed to organize a one hour call.

Calls and meetings on my own calendar over the past month have been originated and organized via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, SMS, Skype – yep, everything except Foursquare. Have you noticed the same phenomena in your business day?

Shift your attention back to the original question…how do we communicate effectively with our customers? The old saw of making the “right offer, right person, right channel, right time” has taken on another dimension as channel choice has exploded.

The bad news is that finding the right combination to perfect communication is more complex. The good news is that the opportunity to solidify relationships and build trust when you get the combination right is more potent than ever.

In a world where points matter less and building trust matters more, you must rationalize a way to  engage your customers through the channel of their choice in order to put the magic back in your communications stream.

There are two forms of brilliance in business – one displayed by people who invent things we haven’t thought about before (Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare) and those that find a way to incorporate these new communications channels into mainstream business to generate revenue.

In many aspects of social media, we are waiting for the dots to be connected and for business to understand how to put the tools to use to enhance existing business models, engage customers, and make money. Location based marketing has been a head-scratcher from this perspective. Foursquare launched at SXSW only two years ago in March 2009 and now has an estimated 5.7 Million registered users. Many of these users are interested in doing more than becoming the “mayor” of a location, yet merchants have been slow to take advantage of the platform to deliver targeted and inexpensive marketing. Many people think that 2011 will be the year that Location Based marketing takes off and the predictions here are indicative of the potential.

The launch of SNAP (Social Network Appreciation Platform) today was covered by Mashable in an article here and has my full attention as it represents the second form of brilliance and is a legitimate tool to make any loyalty program “social”. In the spirit of full disclosure, Hanifin Loyalty has been named an agency partner of SNAP and will be advocating SNAP to the market.

In the SNAP press release, capabilities are explained and it is clear that the application can connect any existing loyalty program membership base to local merchants to enable “passive check-in” using Foursquare, Facebook Places, and Twitter. Leaderboards and Badges are supported as are more sophisticated bonusing elements.

“Social Loyalty” using passive social network check-in was pioneered by Tasti D-Lite and Loyalty Truth applauded its launch about this time last year. The work done between Tasti D-Lite and PC America has evolved to become SNAP and can enable social loyalty on a standalone basis for smaller merchants and even work within a gift card platform. You can get the idea even better via this clever video.

To my knowledge, TopGuest is the only other application in market that converts check-ins to rewards points, but they approach the subject from a different angle. TopGuest is a mobile application that enables consumers to check-in and earn extra points with designated rewards programs, principally in the hospitality segment. The fact that TopGuest quickly affiliated with brands such as Virgin America, Hilton, and Intercontinental speaks to the high level of interest by business in bringing a social element to their staid rewards programs.

SNAP is an open platform that can be used by any business – small or large – to enable social check-in, reward word of mouth marketing, and generate referrals and recommendations across a trusted network of friends. It can be integrated to loyalty processing software packages and with POS systems in merchant locations.

I’ve only recently realized that the conversation isn’t about Millennials or Generation Y anymore. It’s about “Consumer 2.0″, those consumers who have grown up with technology and live in an “always on” environment, preferring to communicate with friends and brands through digital channels.

The significance of this realization is that Consumer 2.0 probably numbers about 150 Million, or half of the US population. The figure includes all the Millennials (so you’re not forgotten) and accounts for those of us (Boomer, Gen X, and other groups) influenced by the Millennials we know and the increasing importance of digital marketing.

SNAP opens up many doors to allow brands to connect with their customers and adds a critical component to any loyalty program if it is to stay relevant with Consumer 2.0.

While I’m a firm believer that you shouldn’t post anything online that you wouldn’t want everyone to see, many might be happy to know that Facebook’s privacy capabilities are getting stronger. This week, Facebook announced a new feature called Groups, which will allow users to divide their network into smaller sub-networks, like friends, relatives, classmates and coworkers.

With Groups, users can selectively share their information, instant message and edit online documents with the people in a chosen group. Now “Work Stefanie” and “Play Stefanie” don’t have to be the same person.

Yes, this does sound familiar. Facebook already has something called Friend Lists which let you set up subgroups in your network, but compared to Groups, Friend Lists is much more manual – and only 5 percent of members regularly use it.

If you wanted to create a group of old college friends, you had to weed through your friends list and manually click on each person to add them to the group. With Groups, you can set up a ‘College’ group and only add a few people. The people you added can then add other people to the group, and before you know it, your whole group is set up. And if you are tagged into a group you don’t want to be in, all you have to do is leave.

Stefanie Stricklin is a Public Relations Manager at JZMcBride and Associates.

Editor’s Note: Does this seem like a clever or clumsy way for Facebook to address their ongoing privacy issues?

Would the owner of a blue Honda Civic please come to the front desk…Your lights are on. It’s situations like these that Bump.com is trying to help resolve more efficiently. Theservice, touted as “AAA meets Foursquare” by founder Michael Thrower, is essentially a social networking tool that links drivers through their automobile’s license plates.

The idea is that drivers will be able to communicate with other motorists, the government and marketers—using license plates as identifiers. Bump’s video explores a bevy of solutions that it will offer fellow drivers, including everything from alerting when a taillight is out to letting someone know about leaking oil.

The possibilities of Bump do not end with simply helping other drivers. The company has also expressed how there are endless other ways to put the service to use. A few of these, according to Wired Magazine include, “Fleets and cab companies using Bump to contact their drivers, meter maids alerting you when your car is about to get towed, car manufacturers sending important recall information directly to Bump accounts and eventually drivers being able to renew their licenses and registrations through the service.”

As with any new social networking service, Bump has raised privacy concerns. Objections to social media that can track an individual’s location and activity will always exist. A Bump member can choose to share their personal information or not, but this does not answer all of these legitimate privacy uncertainties.

Thrower said Bump will be in a public beta by Thanksgiving, so that leaves the rest of us to speculate. Will Bump take off and enjoy similar success like its social networking kin? Predictions are all over the map for Bump, but the service’s critics seem to be the loudest right now.

Don’t forget though, back in 2004 people said a website with that linked 1 million college students would never grow to become worth an estimated $40 billion and redefine how the world uses the Internet.

Everyone has to start somewhere, right Facebook?

By: Ray Kowatch, of JZMcBride and Associates

Relationships are challenging. But navigating relationships in the new era of social media brings with it a whole new set of challenges (and now a whole new host of web sites.)

In the past few days, I’ve had two friends change their relationship status on Facebook to announce a new relationship that has been going on for less than a month. One of the relationships has already ended (and I hear is now back on again.) I’ve got my fingers crossed for the second one.

So, it shouldn’t have surprised me at all to flip on the TV on Saturday morning and see a news story on CBS about “How to Delete Your Ex From Your Online Life.” Breaking up is hard to do, but apparently there are lots of new web sites and apps at-the-ready to help you out.

1. Blockyourex.com

Go to BlockYourEx.com and type in the names and social networking usernames of up to five exes, and install the blocker to make every online image and mention of them disappear. The blocker works for Facebook, Twitter, in Google search results and more. It takes only a matter of seconds to download and is compatible with most Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome).

Your ex has no way of knowing you’ve installed the “Ex-Blocker.” And, should you reconcile, it’s quick and easy to uninstall!

2. EraseUrX iPhone App (99 cents)

Yes, there’s an app for that! The EraseUrX iPhone app will help you create an e-mail, send a screw-you photo from your library or camera, or record your own voice message. Then it will erase their number from your phone – let’s face it, that’s the hardest part!

3)  iDump4You.com

Yes, you can pay someone to do the breaking up for you. Seriously. For a fee, someone from iDump4U.com will personally call your partner and break it off. Fill out a simple form on the site, make a payment, and within 24 hours, the deed will be done. Fees range from $10 for a basic break up to $25 to break off an engagement to $50 to initiate a divorce.

4) Foursquare and Avoidr.org

Location-based social networking apps like FourSquare are all the rage with over 2 million users updating where they are, so it was only a matter of time until somebody developed a product to deal with the backlash. Avoidr is a website that enables you to follow your Foursquare friends, then identify the places they aren’t checked into.

5) IDoNowIDont.com

And finally, there’s the aptly named IDoNowIDon’t.com where someone ending an engagement or marriage can sell or auction off his or her your engagement ring. Mara Opperman, cofounder of the site, says its average transaction price is $2,500, usually 30 to 60 percent below retail, so it can also be a place for those planning an engagement to snag a deal on a ring. The site is full of interesting back stories detailing relationships gone bad.

Jill McBride is our latest contributing author at Loyalty Truth and will be sharing thoughts on public relations, direct, loyalty & relationship marketing and will offer up a few surprises as well. Jill is Founder & CEO of JZMcBride & Associates, a Cincinnati based firm which provides marketing, direct marketing, public relations and event planning services and consultation. She has an impressive list of clients which you can find here and publishes the Spin Within, a highly entertaining blog that’s worth a read. Thanks to Jill for this first post offering a new “Spin Within” on relationship management.

Suppose you’re a local craft brewery, without the marketing resources of a Coors, Miller or Sam Adams. You don’t have money in the budget for national TV commercials—or any TV spots for that matter. So how do you get the word out about your award-winning brews?

If you’re Delaware-based Dogfish Head, you make the most of your marketing dollars—by leveraging the Web and social media to help spread the word and turn casual customers into loyal fans.

Now if you’ve ever had a bottle of any type of Dogfish Head, you’ll know that this is one company that knows what they’re doing when it comes to making beer. Dogfish Head brews are consistently tasty, distinctive and often complex in flavor, with notes that are more akin to a fine wine than a beer.

So it probably comes as no surprise that these passionate brew masters have brought the same level of passion and flair to their brand marketing efforts. A few highlights that set the brand apart:

• A robust Web experience—at the Dogfish site, you can read about the latest Dogfish Head releases as well as happenings at the brewery and company restaurant. What’s important here is the sheer depth of the content. Each brew—and there are lots of them—has it own page, with the story behind the beer, tasting notes and even food pairing recommendations.
• An active presence on Facebook and Twitter—the key to success on both of these social sites is to keep the material fresh and interact with those who reach out to you. Dogfish Head does both and has over 55,000 Facebook followers and 18,000-plus on Twitter, impressive for a microbrew.
• Its own video-rich YouTube channel—most of the videos feature founder Sam Calagione with a behind the scenes look at the brewing ingredients and process. Sam is personable, has a good camera presence and his commitment to his craft comes through loud and clear.
• A community of fans—what better way to develop brand advocates than to develop a place where they can congregate and interact. At the site’s community forum, members can pontificate on issues ranging from music to home brewing to, of course, Dogfish Head’s latest releases.

On a personal note: my favorite Dogfish Head beers are the delicious 60-minute IPA, or when I’m in the mood for a more intense “sipping” beer, the raisin-infused Raison D’ Etre.

Cheers!

Tom Rapsas is a seasoned Creative Director and has helped many brands deliver their message effectively to consumers. Loyalty Truth appreciates this tasty post on the eve of the July 4th weekend. You can follow Tom’s creative insights on Twitter via @TomRapsas