Facebook announces Unique Vanity URL's for users

I came across a post recently about the fact that Facebook will be offering Vanity Facebook URL's, starting this Friday, June 12th at 9 pm for registration. You can read more at the Facebook blog and you'll want to bookmark the registration page, to secure your vanity ID right away. Here's the short of it:

You're able to create a Vanity URL like http://www.facebook.com/edbisquera (no, it's not registered yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be registering it on Friday at 9:01 PM!) and you can do the same for Facebook business pages as well. So make sure and mark on your calendar to be there to register. But don't worry, there are some ways to protect your unique URL. Check the blog post at Facebook for more information.

Now that we're really seeing a move to utilize Social Media Marketing and using sites like Facebook to connect with others, it's imperative we use these tools to market ourselves easily and Facebook is now making it easier to remember our personal profile page as a unique URL or market our fan/business pages unique URL as well.

I'm sure it would be prudent to snap up say http://www.facebook.com/kellerwilliamsrealty or http://www.facebook.com/remax but according to the blog, there will be some security measures in place to prevent "squatting" of unique ID's and will only allow ONE unique URL per registered Facebook user, registered BEFORE May 31, 2009.

So if you think you're going to try and snag some unique brand or your company name, Facebook has in place to only allow it to the official "owner."  But that won't stop or prevent you from thinking hyperlocal when naming your unique Facebook Vanity URL.

You could name it http://www.facebook.com/kellerwilliamsvancouver or http://www.facebook.com/VancouverWAREMax or something that identifies you in your local or regional market.  (And no, these links aren't real; yet!)  I'm sure my colleagues in my area will be quick to snap up their respective hyperlocal company names soon enough.  Just think creatively and you'll also want to come up with something that matches any existing marketing or branding you are already using.  **One thing to note, however, is that Facebook says "once you decide on your unique Vanity URL ID, you will not be able to change it or transfer it."  I'm sure that will cause some problems, as you may change companies in the future or you'd like to transfer to someone else, but maybe they'll have a better or different way of dealing with that in the future. :-)

In my opinion, this is great for all Facebook users, but I think best for anyone marketing in the Real Estate and Mortgage industry.  Now we'll have a unique URL for our Facebook pages and personal profiles, which will just add another line to add to our business cards! LOL

And with a unique Facebook URL, maybe it will make adding friends a whole lot easier. :-)

 

 

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