Facebook Username change announced – essential information & the clock is ticking!
Heads Up!
You may or may not be aware of this already, and you might agree with the policy change or not – opinion seems divided. But, whichever side of the fence you’re on, this is a critical opportunity for all facebook users, which will apply particularly to bands and artists.
This Saturday at 12.01 Eastern Daylight Time (That’s 5.01 PM for Brits), you will be able to register for a user name on facebook for your existing account – for the first time ever – and they will be dished out on a first come first served basis!
Some people hate the idea as too much like MySpace, but whether you like it or not, you want to be ready to get there and get your band name. I’m not quite sure how much SEO benefit there might be to it, but I know it’ll look better and be easier to remember and therefore direct people to.
You will have the option of all alphanumeric characters and a full stop (period for the US readers!) but that’s about it. So mine will read, if I get it, www.facebook.com/ianclifford. You could also just use your band name followed by’.com’ if that’s your usual web address.
There is obviously going to be a major rush to get names and facebook will have a disputes process, but the best advice is get there and get your name bagged.
Everything you need to know is covered here at facebook – http://www.facebook.com/username/
June 11th, 2009 at 1:43 am
That would be 0501 (as in AM) for us Brits. Early start on Saturday!
June 11th, 2009 at 7:03 am
I’m sure it’s 17.01 for the Brits. EDT is behind us. But if you want to get up that early…….
June 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
More thoughts on the issue here:
http://chrissingletonmusic.blogspot.com/2009/06/facebook-vanity-urls.html
June 20th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I noticed that this is not the first time you mention the topic. Why have you decided to write about it again?
p.s. Year One is already on the Internet and you can watch it for free.
August 18th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
can you change the name of your fan site on face book?
August 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
You can, but you need to have at least 100 fans.
There was a limitation for Facebook Fan pages. When they first brought the new usernamer in you needed to have 1000 fans on your page in order to change the url.
However, since the end of June, Facebook fan pages with over 100 fans can now get their customised url. To do this go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and select the username for any fan pages that you administer.
If you still find that you can’t do it, it will be because your fan page hasn’t existed for long enough. I can’t seem to find out how long facebook requires you to have a fan page, and have over 100 fans, but some kind of time as a user seems fair enough.
Ian