Creating a Custom Facebook URL | How and Why To

Posted by Andrew Norman on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 8:27pm

by Andrew Norman

When you're room's messy, it's time for a cleaning. The same goes for bands' online presence. One simple way to class up your Facebook joint is by securing a custom URL.
 
What 
 
Your facebook URL is the address that appears in your browser's address field when you're at your page (likely the wall). Without a custom URL, it looks something like this: 
 
www.facebook.com/pages/Your-Band-Name/156994311021809
 
A custom URL would make it: ... facebook.com/YourBandName
 
Why
Aside from aesthetic purposes, a custom URL increases the ease in which fans find your band page, and makes it a cleaner-looking address when promoters share it. 
 
In addition, you don't want to get beat to the punch by bands who totally stole your name.
 
How:
First, your page must have at least 25 fans. If it doesn't, it's time to call mom and have her send a missive to your relatives. Go for it, we'll wait ...
 
Nice work. Now, ensure you're an administrator of the page. Visit http://www.facebook.com/username and follow the instructions, where you will be able to choose your username just like a user selecting a username for their profile (timeline). There will be an interface for you to choose usernames for each of the eligible pages you administer.
 
Andrew Norman is Hear Nebraska's editor. He wrote this in under 10 minutes, so if you see an error, please post it in the comments so he can fix this post. 
 

Comments

Andrew Norman on Tue, 02/07/2012 - 4:37pm

Deleting a FB band page

Good question: "I already have a Fan Page, but I'd like to start over (deleting this and creating a new one) ... If I delete the page, will I still be able to use it, or the custom url will "freeze" forever?"

I can't find the answer online. But I'm guessing the URL will be frozen, based on general readings that Facebook keeps content "alive" for a long time after it's deleted. I would imagine the same would be true about a page, because they'd ultimately hope you'd start it up again. I could be wrong, however. 
 
Still, the better questions might be: Why delete the page? And would losing the custom URL be worth whatever you'd gain from starting fresh?
 
As an aside, I regret having named Hear Nebraska's FB page "hearnebraska.org." At the time, I thought it might be helpful to direct Facebook users to the site. But by the time I realized the advantage of promoting Hear Nebraska's larger brand, we had more followers than I was comfortable losing by starting over.
 
Maybe someone who has actually deleted their band page could answer this question better.
 
Andrew Norman on Tue, 01/10/2012 - 9:00pm

Kill the "ats"

There we go. No prize, just thanks.