Yeah, we’re on Facebook. It’s a great, free way to interact with customers and promote our business. You can fan our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/officedrop. You may be wondering “hey, how do I get a cool custom URL like that?” We wondered the same thing, and after four months of hacking into the Facebook database we finally got it done. We also took the liberty of deleting those pictures from the office Christmas party. That’s a joke, you don’t have to hack into Facebook to get a custom username, but it wasn’t exactly easy. Here are the steps you need to take to get your business a company Facebook page and a custom username aka that clean, professional looking URL.

1. Create a Company Facebook Page (if you already have a page see steps 2-3)

This is the easy part. Go to www.facebook.com/pages and from there you should find a button to “+Create Page.” Hit that guy and then fill out some information to classify and create your page.

*Note: Be careful about who creates this page! Once the page is created it is permanently linked to the profile of the person who created it. If a lower-level employee creates the page and the CEO wants ownership there is no way to make that transfer- believe us, we tried.

2. Get 25 Fans

This is where it gets a little tricky but don’t worry, you can do it. Facebook lets you get that custom page username, but they require that you have at least 25 fans under your belt first. This is kind of a pain but it’s understandably implemented to prevent squatters from eating up URLs. For some, getting 25 fans might be a cinch, for others it might be a little more difficult. Leverage your friends and family to get fans by asking for favors, or making promises of cookies. We recommend asking anyone you know in college - they can probably help you get to 25 really quickly.

3. Get that Custom Facebook URL!

Got your fans? Good. Now to get that vanity URL: head to www.facebook.com/username and make sure that an administrator of the page is signed in at this point (that is usually the person who created the page). From the facebook.com/username page it is primarily asking about personal profile usernames, but what you want is the link underneath all that noise that says “Set a username for your Pages.” Click the link contained there and you will be given a list of the pages you administer. Almost there - just pick the page you want to edit and cross your fingers that the username you want isn’t already taken. If it isn’t, then congratulations, you’ve got your custom username. Just make sure there aren’t any typos because once you enter the name, there’s no turning back. Now you’re looking dapper with your new custom username and you can promote via Facebook with a fresh, clean looking custom URL.

Why do you want a Custom Facebook URL?

Besides the fact that all the cool companies have their own custom FaceBook page (check out Coke’s page or Lacoste’s), Facebook is a fun way to show a little of your company’s personality and communicate with your customers. Just as importantly, for a small business, Facebook pages - properly named, that is - show up highly in search engine results. Finally, you don’t want some competitor putting up a page in your name! Happy social networking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.