Comments on: What to Do if Your Name URL on Facebook is Gone – And Why You Don’t Want One

By: Travis Campbell

Travis Campbell — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:28:58 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to offer feedback Jim. Keep it rolling!

By: Jim Howey

Jim Howey — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:06:07 +0000

Travis,

GREAT ideas. Will implement some of those this week!

By: Vicki

Vicki — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:20:33 +0000

I'm beginning to realize just how happy I am that I don't use Facebook.

By: Travis Campbell

Travis Campbell — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:48:36 +0000

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??

By: Amanda Page

Amanda Page — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:06:18 +0000

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.

By: jessestay

jessestay — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:30:38 +0000

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.

By: NancyBurban

NancyBurban — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:25:07 +0000

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

By: davehardinMPdotcom

davehardinMPdotcom — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:41:45 +0000

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

By: Jos Essers

Jos Essers — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:09:00 +0000

Travis, this is fantastic advice. I am in the process of reorganising my online image. This helps! Thanks

Jos

By: cool

cool — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:45:00 +0000

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 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.