Were you one of those dedicated personal branding gurus who made sure they stayed up on June 12th to get your Facebook vanity user name? How did you name yourself? Real name? Catchy moniker? Me? Well I went for the real name. But that goes back to how I interact on Facebook, more so with friends and fam and a few business pros that I feel comfortable sharing the personal me with.
I had several peers stay up or awake early to attempt to secure their choice user name. Some missed their window of opportunity, but some totally got the name they wanted. I had no problem getting my user name, let’s face it, there aren’t that many Kelly Dingee’s around. But, while that’s a great feat and all, what concerned me more was when could I get a vanity user name for my company’s Facebook Fan Page. That’s important. First of all I want it before anyone squats on it. That is beyond annoying. Second, I wanted to be consistent across the social media we have profiles on. And third, if I can shorten the url and rid it of the random numbers, that’d be great too. A whole lot cleaner when I mention the link online. And ultimately, I want our company to be as easily findable as possible by our current and future clients as well as our current and potential employees.
But it wasn’t as easy as I thought. When I checked out the user name option for Fan Pages, I found out two things. One, user names for Fan Pages were being rolled out to pages with 1000 members or more, at least if you were trying to do this around June 12th. But with a little patience, you would wait until June 18th to claim your name. We weren’t quite to the 1000 fans with our Fan Page so we opted to wait. But I got it. And now, on at least 3 of the the top social media sites, we are consistently named and easy to find.
But what about you? June 28th has come and gone. As I visit corporate fan pages, I see so many that are not taking advantage of this unique opportunity to easily brand their company on the site that has over 200 million members worldwide. So go now, get yours. And start making your company transparent across all networks you decide to join.
Kelly, great advice here. I completely agree with you – I see more and more companies with a ‘fan page’ . . . However, most do little with it. Just showing up isn’t enough, yet that’s the oft-found mindset in our space.
‘Just the Mktg Department’? Ouch!
In regards to FB & Twitter, here’s an interesting wrinkle: PR and Marketing are leading the effort, so there is no channel or strategy to handle potential candidate interest!
I’ve actually conducted my own experiment within my niche – whenever I see a Client or potential Client, I DM their Twitter account and ask if they forward candidate questions/interest to Recruiting. 9 times out of 10, the answer has been either no response, or my favorite, “No, this is just the marketing department.”
Between you and I, there needs to be a conversation and strategy laid out to bring Mktg and Recruiting together on the same page (or better, a Talent Acquisition-focused [additional] fan page or Twitter account).
The current situation reminds me not so much of the Wild West (i.e. people trying to figure things out on the fly), but more like the pre-9/11 communication chasm between the FBI and CIA.
They actually changed the requirement for pages – you must have 100+ fans of your page to get a short URL:
Your Facebook Page must meet two requirements: it must have been live on Facebook prior to the May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have had a minimum 1,000 fans at that time.
This limitation is temporary. All Pages created after May 31, 2009 or that had less than 1,000 fans on that day will be eligible to claim usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009 if they have more than 100 fans.
Josh – your comments are spot on! Thanks so much. I agree – marketing and hr need to work hand in hand.
Caitlin…thanks for the info (if you have a link to that 100+ fans please drop it for the FOT readers)….I think everyone with a corporate fan page should be able to get to 100 fans….just some internal campaigning and bringing friends to get there…
kelly, kelly, kelly… you had peers stay up to secure their choice user name… me? i had to scream at my friends, “i need to go home! it’s 12am! i can’t secure my name on this blackberry browser!” and then at 3:30am, i get home to find it was slim pickings for my vanity URL… sigh.
well don’t just settle for “jessica lee”…maybe it should be “the jessica lee”
And who are you kidding…1 a.m. is nothin’ for you!
Should is spelled incorrectly in your subject
CB – Duly noted.