How To Create A Custom Facebook URL

Sometimes I can be a really slow adopter, and sometimes I can be just plain ole’ distracted. That’s what I have been in regards to a few things that have always been on my radar such as Facebook and maybe LinkedIn — distracted — but I’m on a mission to change that. So I started clearing out the clutter today by finally setting up my custom Facebook vanity urls.

What Is A Custom Facebook Vanity Url?
If you are on Facebook, and who isn’t these days:), you will notice that you have a really pretty ugly url. Something perhaps like: http://www.facebook.com/people/Lisa-Miller-Angelettie/578689665. Ick! Too long. Too many numbers. I mean how could you put that on a business card?

When you designate a custom url to your Facebook account, it will look shorter and easier to read like: http://www.facebook.com/lisa.angelettie.

Why Do You Need A Custom Url?
Well, there are a few reasons why you should have and use a Facebook vanity url:

1. It’s free. You don’t have to buy this domain name, so why not claim it?

2. Claim your brand. You want to make sure that you claim your name, your business name, keywords, etc. before someone beats you to the punch. Sure, folks have been claiming their urls for quite a while at this point, but there are also a lot of people who haven’t or have “plans” to but haven’t yet.

3. It’s easier to remember. I mean honestly, I don’t know why they gave us these ugly urls anyway. I probably would have promoted my Facebook pages more if my url was simple. You can use the vanity urls on business cards, marketing materials, your site, email signatures, etc.

How Do I Get My Facebook Vanity Url?
Easy as pie. To get your custom url, just go to: http://facebook.com/username and reserve your name – claim your brand! You have to login in order to do this, so if you have a Fan page, you will have an opportunity to claim custom urls for both your profile page and your fan page at the same time.

What Is Your Custom Url, Lisa?
Hey, I’m glad you asked:)  You can come ask me anything about writing and marketing articles at: http://www.facebook.com/Article.Marketing.Income

*UPDATE (2011)

If you have tried securing a vanity url for your Facebook FAN PAGE and your page is not yet “eligible” for a username it may be because of Facebook’s eligibility requirements which include that your page must have been live on Facebook prior to May 31, 2009 AND you must have at least 1000 FANS.

It is not yet totally clear whether or not Facebook will allow pages created after that date a vanity url once they reach 1000 fans, but it appears as if the admin interface intuitively knows once a page hits that mark and will permit you access to changing the url.

The reason Facebook gave for changing eligibility requirements is that people were creating pages in order to reserve certain names a.k.a. “squatting”. In order to avoid that type of abuse, Facebook made an aggressive change to the eligibility requirements.

WORKAROUND

This is of course bad news for many small businesses because it is no easy feat to gain 1000 fans, but you can of course reserve a domain name such as www.LisaFanPage.com and forward it to your actual fan page. This is great for referring and linking to your fan page.

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Lisa Angelettie

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I make a living writing, ePublishing, and marketing books and teaching others how to do the same. I have one mission: To turn you into the best writer that you can be while enjoying every minute of it!

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