Warning: Facebook constantly changes their software rules without warning — and the advice in post may not work anymore. Many users have reported problems following these procedures – see the comments. Use this advice at your own risk!

Love it or hate it, Facebook is currently the biggest and popular site on the web… except for Google. It’s ranked #2 by Alexa and it has over 1.5 billion inbound links. Because it’s such a powerful site, having a well-branded, SEO-optimized vanity username or Fan page URL on Facebook can be a big boost your business and online reputation.

Facebook Username Length & Guidelines

• Usernames must be 5 characters long and may be no longer than 50 characters.
• Usernames can only contain A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and periods (.)
• Your account must be e-mail and SMS (text message) verified before you are allowed to set or change usernames.
• Facebook says you cannot register usernames and try to resell them for money, or they will disable the username (or your account) if they find out.

How Do I Set My Facebook Username (Vanity URL)?

When you’re logged into your account, type the following URL into the browser bar:

http://www.facebook.com/username

Then follow the on-screen directions. They tend to show a lot of suggested usernames with periods in them, and you may have to click the “more” button to type in the one you really want. Check the availability, double-check your spelling (don’t type in “JohnSnith” instead of “JohnSmith“>), and then confirm the name to lock it in for good.

How Do I Change My Facebook Username?

1. Click on the “Account” dropdown menu at the far upper right of your screen. Then select “Account Settings” from the drop-down menu:

2.) Click on the button to change your username:

How Many Times Can I Change My Facebook Username?

You are only allowed to change your username once. If you have changed your name once already and want to do it again, you’ll have to register and SMS-verify a new Facebook account. (Maybe buy one of this disposable, prepaid cellular phones for $29.99?)

Someone already registered my choice of username. If they change it to something else, can I claim it? Can we trade Facebook usernames?

Notice: The information in this article was true at the time it was written (February, 2010). Facebook changes on a monthly basis and this information PROBABLY WON’T work the same in 2011 or 2012. I have gotten several reader comments saying that they tried this method and it doesn’t work anymore. Don’t try and change or give up a name unless you are 100% okay with losing it permanently.

Yes. It is possible to trade and exchange Facebook usernames. From the tests that I personally conducted (on 2/19/10)… it seems that the second you change your Facebook username to something else, your old username immediately becomes “up for grabs.” If someone else registered as “JohnSmith” and you can talk them into changing to another name.. the moment they change and confirm it, you can grab “JohnSmith” for yourself.

Here is a video I found on YouTube that demonstrates how to transfer / trade Facebook usernames:
(warning! cheesy music)

How Do I Set A Vanity URL for a Facebook Fan Page?

Facebook Usernames URLs are best for individual people. Facebook Fan Page vanity URLs are better for collective interests like: companies, organization, bands and products. Once your fan page has 25 or more members, you are eligible to set a vanity URL for it. Here’s how:

1. Type “http://www.facebook.com/username” into your browser’s address bar:

2.) Click the blue link that says “Set a username for your pages”:

If I registered a personal Facebook username/URL and now I want to change it to a fan page URL. Is this possible?

Yes. Here are some tips on how to do this that were sent in on 10/24/11 by reader Nathan Stephens of Groundswell Media Productions:

The solution that I find works best to transfer your custom url/username from a user profile to a Fan page is to first create a new Fan page for your business. Once you have created the new Fan page then migrate your user profile to a Fan page. Be sure to read Facebook’s help FAQ before migration https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=18918 then begin the migration https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?migrate. Once the migration from a user profile to a Fan page is complete Merge your Fan page with the new Fan page you just migrated from a user profile to a Fan page. Again be sure to read Facebook’s help FAQ https://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=duplicate before merging your duplicate fan pages.

Can I Change the Name of a Facebook Fan Page?

No. According to this thread, you cannot currently change the name of a Facebook Fan page. If your company is called “Extreme Print Design” and you have a Fan page for it, and you legally change your company name to “Extreme Web Design” – you still cannot change the name of your fan page. You have to make a new fan page and start over.

Can I Change the URL of a Facebook Fan Page?

No. Once the fan page URL has been set, there is no way to change it. Not that I know of.

Disclaimer: Facebook has complex, not-user-friendly, constantly evolving interface! The information in this post was true at the time of writing, but i is very likely to change in the coming months or years.

You’re cranking out some solid blog posts for your company. And you’ve just convinced the boss to let you set up a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page, too. But the boss is worried it’ll take up too much time, and she asks: “Can you automatically update Twitter and Facebook with our new blog posts?” Yes, you can. Here’s how to do it reliably and for free.

Update: When I wrote this post, the method outlined in the post was the way to go – at that time. In the past several months, the social application HootSuite has evolved significantly and will take care of all this for you. I recommend trying Hootsuite first, and only messing with the following information if you have special needs.

This method will allow you to link out of Facebook’s walled garden and get maximum traffic for your publishing efforts.

Step 1: Getting RSS Updates Automatically Posted to Twitter

Twitterfeed is a handy, free website & application that will “feed your blog to Twitter.”

1. Go to Twitterfeed. Sign up for an account. Verify and login.
2. Click “Create New Feed” button

3. Click “Connect your feed to your Twitter account” button. Enter your (company) username and password on Twitter’s site and click “Allow.”
4. Enter in a name for your blog’s feed, and enter the RSS feed URL.
5. Click on “Advanced Settings” and you can choose the hourly update frequency, URL shorteners, titles, suffixes, etc.

It might take a couple of hours to get working. Once going, it’s fairly reliable unless Twitter goes down or has API issues. Check the stream every few days to make sure all is well.

Step 2: Getting Twitter Updates (‘tweets’) Automatically Posted to a FB Fan Page

Once you have your content automatically posted to Twitter, via Twitterfeed, you can then have it automatically piped to your Facebook fan page with a free (donation supported) application called “Selective Twitter Status.” Whenever you tweet with the hashtag #fb – (example: “666 Signs You’re NOT a Social Media Expert – http://bit.ly/poser #fb“) – Selective Twitter Status will selectively grab that tweet and post it onto your FB fan page. Here’s how to hook it up:

1. Go to “Selective Twitter Status” when you’re logged into FB.
2. Enter your (company) Twitter username and “allow” the pop-up permission to post updates.
3. Click on the “Your Fan Pages” tab and enter the (company) Twitter name next to the page you want updated. Click “save changes.”

4. Open up another browser tab and log back in to Twitterfeed.
5. On the main Feed Dashboard, click the oval “Edit Feed” button.
6. In the box marked “Post Suffix,” enter #fb.
   

   
   This tells Twitterfeed to put these characters at the end of each tweet, so that FB’s Selective Twitter Status will “selectively” post this new content to your FB fan page. This way you are free to chat with people and tweet random things, but only the actual blog posts marked with #fb will be rebroadcast on Facebook.

(Note #1: Facebook has a new built-in application that will allow you to update your Twitter feed from your FB page, which can be handy for some people. Check it out. But personally I don’t want to log into Facebook everyday and tinker around with the clunky interface and endless distractions – I want fully-automatic updates.)

(Note #2: Facebook has a popular, built-in application called “Notes” – that will easily import your blog content and/or pictures onto your fan page – and keep people stuck in Facebook’s walled garden. But as a marketer, I want to drive people out of Facebook and onto my clients’ pages – and I want to post external links.)

What If I Don’t Want the #FB Tag to Show Up On My Tweets?

The Selective Twitter Status app requires that you put the tag #FB on all tweets you want to show up on your Facebook Fan Page. This can look a little ugly, and it can slightly discourage people from sharing or retweeting the content. Here’s how I get around having a visible #FB tag on all my blog post tweets:

1. Make two Twitter accounts. Have your “main” one with the preferred username and nice background, and a secondary “dummy” account with a random username. (The purpose of the “dummy” account is just to update Facebook – it doesn’t matter who follows it.)
2. Make two Twitterfeed accounts. Have the first Twitterfeed account update your main account, and under “advanced settings” make sure it does not add any prefixes to the tweets for a nice, clean look. Have the second Twitterfeed account pipe your RSS feed to the “dummy” Twitter account and make sure the “#fb” prefix is added to every tweet.
3. Go into Facebook, click the “Application” option in the extreme bottom left bar of the screen – and find Selective Twitter Status or just click this link.
4. Set up the Selective Twitter Status application so that the dummy account, with all of the posts marked #fb by Twitterfeed, gets piped into the fan page of your choice.

Hooray! Now you’re pimpin’ the power of Web 2.0 – and you have one Twitterfeed account feeding beautiful links to your main Twitter account, and a secondary Twitterfeed account feeding #fb-tagged RSS updates to your dummy Twitter account… which all gets imported straight to your Facebook fan page – free of tags and noise!

If this sounds a little complex, it is, but for me it works well. I get an RSS feed turned into clean, clickable links that are broadcast out on Twitter and FB automagically. If you have a monthly budget, you might want to investigate Involver – which claims to offer premium features for FB page fan management – or explore other apps.

Good luck and let me know what you find or discover in the comments below!

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