What to Do if Your Name URL on Facebook is Gone – And Why You Don’t Want One
Everyone is talking about it, and in just a couple hours the doors will open and people will start snatching up their Name URL on Facebook. I think it is a good idea to get yours if you can. What if you don’t get it? I have some ideas on variations in this post, but more importantly, is this something you should do anyway? For some, I think it could be a problem.
What to Do if Your Name URL on Facebook is Gone – And Why You Don’t Want One
It happens shortly, and many who read this will be reading well after it has passed us by. Facebook opens the doors to us common folk to get our own name url on Facebook. Here’s how you get it, some thoughts on why it might be a bad idea, and a better alternative.
What’s the Deal
A lot of folks are talking about it. At midnight EST (that’s very soon), you will have the opportunity to get a ‘vanity’ name of sorts on Facebook.
It might currently be something like:
www.facebook.com/people/Your-Name/687451358
(not a valid url, so don’t bother clicking)
Doesn’t www.facebook.com/YourName look much better?? And if someone get’s it before you, time to get a little creative… Add a period, a dash, lastname first, put your city in there? And if you have a Fan page (for you or your company) with over 1000 fans prior to May 31st, 2009, you can get a name URL for them too.
I like this idea, and I think you should pursue it, but I have a problem with it, and you should too.
What’s the Problem with Having Your Name URL on Facebook?
It isn’t a problem strickly for an individual, but for one wanting to use social networking for business it is a problem.
It is a branding problem, it doesn’t brand you or your company first, it brands Facebook. It is your brand, but as an afterthought of theirs.
An Alternative
Invest $9 here. And register your own vanity domain for each social site you engage in. Here are some ideas to search for:
YourFirstnameOnFacebook.com
YourCompanyOnFacebook.com (fan pages)
Need more ideas for domain names? Go here (required PDF reader).
Then, Forward your Domain. Take the domain you just purchased and forward it to any existing webpage you like. More information on domain forwarding here (it’s easy, really).
Another Alternative
This is most useful for companies. Create a directory of your main site, naming the directory the same name of the social media site, and forward to your profile on that site.
Example:
www.MarketingProfessor.com/twitter
www.MarketingProfessor.com/youtube
www.MarketingProfessor.com/facebook
Using a forwarding HTML code. It is free, learn more how to do that here.
I use Affiliate Ninja for that (and a whole lot of other things), for this purpose it is overkill. It is not necessary to purchase anything to get this done. If you want to know more about what Affiliate Ninja does (or can do) a full review of Affiliate Ninja is here. There are other tools that can get the job done, this happens to be the one I use.
Bottomline on Facebook Name URLs
Don’t stress. If you get one great, if you don’t (or didn’t), get creative use the ideas I gave you (and that PDF), and hopefully you’ll get a memorable one. For branding purposes having the ability to rattle off a domain with your name in it, not only makes an impression, but is good branding (and affordable). In a day of personal branding marketers need to take the steps to stand out from the crowd. No Facebook Name URL for you? You got options 
It’s Your Turn: Tell me what you think? What is your take? If you have a branded domain, please share it below.
Layla on 
DrBermant on 
Sirhcnus on 
Jeff on 
Facebook
Plaxo
LinkedIn
YouTube
Twitter
Skype
Hi, my name is Travis Campbell, I operate this site. I'm here to share what I can from my lessons marketing online. With sizeable investments in continuing education, various software products and services, I have had some winners, and some losers. One way I can extend what I've learned is by writing about it, here... and helping you along the way.
Very helpful perspective, Travis. And thanks for the including the tips, links and reference info some of us will need. Will definitely be RT'g this post!
Glad you found it useful Roger, thanks for sending the retweet. I think the more people know about this, the better.
SocialToo.com is helping people by giving them a URL that points to the Facebook profile – [name].socialtoo.com . You can get a free account there as well.
I ended up with http://www.facebook.com/cool1 since they aren't allowing 4 character names. I do also have the domain for my full name, http://www.heidicool.com/ so I suppose I could add a link there too. For me I think it would make sense to do this with a subdomain, such as facebook.heidicool.com, twitter.heidicool.com, etc. Then rather than using a meta-refresh I could do a 301 redirect. (A better option if you have access the the root of your site.)
I'm also using http://www.heidicool.com/about/twitter.php but differently than you are using http://www.MarketingProfessor.com/twitter. This is the link I use on my Twitter profile, geared specifically to people who find me on Twitter. It gives some brief bio info and includes recent Tweets and blog entries as well as the link to the page where I list my more commonly used social media profiles.
Of course in the end it's all about reinforcing connections, and as you've pointed out, there are many good ways to do this.
Heidi-
by leading with the social media property, you are back in the same boat, branding the social property first. When I think of you Heidi comes to mind, not Facebook 
By leading with what you want to brand, can't go wrong. BTW, your site is coming along nice!
Thanks for chiming in here. Congrats on getting a great Facebook name. Your subdomain idea is a valid one. Though I've not done it that way before. I prefer to lead with what you want to brand… Heidi Cool (a cool name for sure
Travis -
Another excellent idea. The price of a domain name is insignificant compared to the damage that you will have to undo if someone gets “yourname.com” and uses it in a way that damages your reputation. I like the “yourname-at” concept and am about to hurry off and purchase a couple of those URLs.
Thanks for the tip!
Dave
This is great advice for any business. I am going to do this for my business clients. It is a lot less work than waiting for the 1,000 fan minimum & much more professional.
Great advice once again, Travis!
Thanks,
Nancy
The advantage to our URLs (I'm SocialToo's CEO) is that we track analytics/clicks/etc along with the URLs, so it's a better solution to hand out to others.
Facebook's trademark lawyers may well take issue with a domain name containing their trademarked name. They'd be less likely to quibble over a subdomain, or subdirectory of your own domain name.
From what I have been advised, since there is no actual page, mal intent, they wouldn't have much of a case. It is a 301 redirect, so it is another link to facebook.com essentially. Any legal folks want to comment??
I'm beginning to realize just how happy I am that I don't use Facebook.
Travis,
GREAT ideas. Will implement some of those this week!
Thanks for taking the time to offer feedback Jim. Keep it rolling!
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