Everybody is talking about Facebook with the recent announcement that they are preparing to go public through an initial public offering (IPO), the biggest tech IPO since Google. Reports have said the price could value the company between $75 and $100 billion. What does this mean for Facebook’s M&A strategy?

In its IPO filing Facebook revealed that it spent $68 million in cash and stock on acquisitions in 2011. Raising $5 billion in capital will give Facebook the leverage to look for bigger deals and might be a sign of a very acquisitive year.

Are investments in the Benelux and Europe likely? Perhaps…Facebook acquired the Dutch software design company Sofa last year and has stated that it continues to look for acquisitions that will improve site design, keep its service reliable and advance mobile features to stave off competition from Google and Twitter.

Facebook noted in its prospectus that more than 4 million business have set up pages on its site - but it did not mention how many of those companies are paying advertising customers. While Facebook has plenty of data about users, it has not indicated how to use that to effectively target ads.

The company can use the proceeds from its IPO, expected to raise $5 billion to $10 billion, to bolster its advertising services by building new tools or by acquiring companies. Compared to many established tech titans, from Google to Apple to Microsoft, Facebook's current business is tiny.

Its IPO prospectus shows that Facebook generated $3.71 billion in revenue and made $1 billion in net profit last year, up 65 percent from the $606 million it made in 2010.

Google reported $38 billion in revenue last year, while Apple had more than $100 billion in revenue in its most recently ended fiscal year. Google shares are currently trading at five times revenue, whereas Facebook would be demanding a 27 times multiple based on a $100 billion valuation.

For some, Facebook's rich valuation is a bet that its sheer mass and its status as the Web's central destination will open new money-making opportunities. To be sure, Google went public at about 24 times its previous year's revenue, and Apple went public at about 25 times prior year's revenue.