Your Facebook Username

By Greg Bellan On November 21, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Advice, Education, Social Media

Have you claimed your Facebook username yet? No, I’m not referring to your login information. The social networking site allows you to choose a “username” for both your personal page as well as any fan pages you administer (once they have 25 fans). Think of it as a vanity plate for your profile.

So instead of telling people to visit your profile at https://www.facebook.com/pages/FastWebUpdates/176761152363551, you can just tell them to visit https://www.facebook.com/FastWebUpdates.

This works the same way for your personal page. Instead of https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1291940730, wouldn’t you prefer to point them to https://www.facebook.com/gbellan?

To get started, simply login to your account and visit http://www.facebook.com/username/

You’ll then be asked to select a desired username. Once you’ve chosen (choose wisely, it can’t be changed) click on CHECK AVAILABILITY to see if it’s already in use. If it is, you’ll be given one more chance to confirm that you indeed do what what you’ve selected.

Several things to remember:

You can’t change your username once you set it. (Make sure you spell your page correctly…)
You cannot transfer ownership to another person/organization.
You can’t violate anyone’s trademark rights.
You can’t grab a username for the purposes of re-selling it later (squatting or parking).
Usernames CAN be reclaimed for unauthorized uses.
Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (a-z, 0-9) or periods (“.”) and must contain at least one letter.

These rules apply for both personal and business pages. When dealing with a business page you can’t select a username for your page until you have at least 25 fans. Once you’ve got yours set up it’s perpetual (even if you should fall beneath the 25 fan threshold).

Another interesting note. Usernames are NOT case sensitive when using them, though you can use capital letters (and periods) to make your page name more readable. For example, one of our clients KillTheCan.org‘s page is here:

http://www.facebook.com/KillTheCan.org

However, users can just as easily use the following to get to the same page:

If you need help setting up your fan page or with any of your social media needs please don’t hesitate to contact us today. We’d love to help you get started!