As Facebook gears up for its IPO, it’s recruiting for its board of directors.  No doubt, many top executives and industry gurus are angling for a seat.

This week, there was another winner:  Reed Hastings, the co-founder and CEO of Netflix (Nasdaq:NFLX), who becomes the company’s sixth board member.  A Silicon Valley rock star, he has provided juicy returns for his shareholders over the years.

While Hastings will be invaluable for helping along with the IPO process, there is certainly a broader purpose – in fact, his value is likely to be more important after Facebook’s public offering.

Hastings knows how to balance the needs of shareholders while also making key changes in a core business.  For example, he was able to take the cash flow from his legacy DVD mail-delivery segment and re-deploy it into the fast-growing web-streaming video category.  It wasn’t easy, and there were many doubters (and top short-sellers bet against it).  But in the end, it turned out to be a grand slam.

Unfortunately, Blockbuster couldn’t also do this, and that company had to file for bankruptcy.

Next, Hastings will be extremely helpful in providing expertise on building a distribution platform that generates revenue.  True, Facebook is expected to get nearly 18% of the share of the display ad market for 2011 (according to a recent report from eMarketer), but only amounts to about $2.2 billion.

In fact, e-commerce may be a key way to boost things, especially with entertainment content like films and music, and Hastings should prove instrumental.  It wouldn’t be surprising to ultimately see a strategic relationship between Facebook and Netflix.

The choice of Hastings is spot-on,  and it certainly provides some insight on the strategic direction of Facebook.

Tom Taulli’s latest book is “All About Short Selling” and he has an upcoming book called “All About Commodities.”  You can find him at Twitter account @ttaulli.  He does not own a position in any of the stocks named here.