Facebook has been playing around with gifting for some time now. While the idea of a Facebook gift never really got off the ground, the company isn’t giving up on it. Today, Facebook announced a new gift card. This card is just like any other gift card only it comes with a twist. Sending the card to a Facebook friend is simple to do too. If you want to send someone special something for any occasion, here’s what you need to know.

How the Cards Work

The first thing you’ll have to do to send a Facebook gift card is determine how much money you want to spend. Then, you will have to decide where your friend can spend that money. Facebook has teamed up with a number of retailers, so you’ll find all the top retailers are available. Choose a dollar amount, a retailer, and the person you want to send a card to. After that, hit the send button and your friend will be notified of your nice deed. A few days later, the card will arrive in your friend’s mailbox.

This all sounds relatively normal, right? Here’s where the Facebook card is unique. First, Facebook will be sending push notifications to card recipients. These notifications will let someone know how much money is left on a card. Second, one card can have multiple balances from multiple stores. So, say you sent your friend a card for Jamba Juice yesterday. Today, you can send that same person money to spend at Target today. The only card the person needs is one card – one card with so many different spending options! See how the new Facebook card is unique?

Will The Cards Work?

Now that you know how the cards will work, the question is: will the cards work? In other words, will Facebook users be sending friends gift cards? Facebook’s mission is to get into user’s wallets or enter the real world. By sending out a physical gift card with the Facebook logo, it’s hard to forget about the social network. It’s also easy to send someone a gift amount to spend at multiple stores using Facebook, and this isn’t something that people are bound to forget about.

Per usual, the Facebook gift card is not available outside of the U.S. Presumably, Facebook will make these cards available in other countries too, but only time will tell. The company will test the U.S. market to see how users respond to the cards before testing other markets. If you live in the United States, you should see a gift card option on your Facebook profile page right now. I’m guessing that the option to send a gift card will also show up when you send someone a birthday greeting note via Facebook too.

If you do have the chance to use the gift cards, let me know how it goes. Facebook is putting a lot of effort and importance into the use of these cards, so it will be interesting to see how well they are received over the next few weeks. I’m betting that a lot of people find great use for the cards.