I always thought Twitter was the most vane social networking site, but as of this Friday night, Facebook will be in the running. Starting on Friday June 12, at 11:01pm central, you’ll be able to choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile. Think of this as your personal URL. Narcissicists and the vane rejoice!
But seriously this does have some pretty interesting implications for the web. Its getting harder and harder to get a decent URL. Sure you can still find a decent .cc, .mobi, .tv, but gone are the good .com URLs. The popular thing now is to make up a new word just so you can have a decent .com. For churches this presents a good opportunity. You now have the opportunity to get the perfect URL. No more www.newlife4mechurchsiteonline.com. Welcome to www.facebook.com/newlife. That is if you grab it first. According to Facebook Pages will be supported with vanity URLs as well as personal profiles:
“If you are an administrator of a Facebook Page, you will be able to choose your username at facebook.com/username just like a user selecting a username for their profile. There will be an interface for you to choose usernames for the Pages you administer.”
This is great marketing opportunity and one that many churches will miss out on if they are not anxiously waiting late into the night on Friday to get their perfect Facebook URL. Why is this a good opportunity?
- Facebook is the #3 most visited site in the US, behind Google and Yahoo.
- Facebook is used by more than just the kids. The largest growth demographic is women 50+. Don’t ask where I got that. I think I read it on TechCrunch a couple months ago.
- People spend an obscene amount of time on Facebook. As a church it is crazy not to have a presence. Church Marketing Online has a series of great posts on how to incorporate a Facebook strategy.
- Facebook gives churches one more way to be found on search engines.
- Facebook is a great way to give targeted information to people connected with your church. Vanity URLs will make it easy to find your church online.
Just a head’s up. I can’t imagine that Facebook’s servers will be able to handle the millions of people logging on at the same time to get their vanity URLs. Be patient and expect slow page loads. To get the details of where to go to get your vanity URL or for additional questions check out theFacebook Help Center or the Facebook Blog.
So what do you think? Should churches get a Facebook Vanity URL?
UPDATE: Those who have Facebook Pages will only be able to get a custom URL if they had 1000 fans by May 31, 2009. So small fan bases need not apply. This is obviously a way to protect from people setting up pages for companies that they do not legitimately have the right to set up pages for. I do think though that this punishes legitmate smaller churches trying to set up their own page. Hopefully Facebook will find a better means of authentication.
