Wow. One of the most common…flubs, for lack of a better word…that I see is a Facebook author page with a discombobulated URL. I must see at least one or two a day. “Come check out my page!” they’ll say to me, presenting me with a link that looks like “http://www.facebook.com/pages/Judy-the-author/260458930631195” Hey, Judy, guess what? No one’s going to remember how to get to your author page with a link like that.
Don’t feel badly, authors aren’t the only ones who fall into this — lots of folks with “Business” and other kinds of pages do as well. And guess what? There is something you can do about it.
Once you have 25 fans or “likes”, you can change that URL. I recently heard a rumor that you don’t even have to have that many “likes”, but according to this Usernames for Facebook Pages help page, that’s not true.
Ready to give it a shot? Here’s how to do it:
On your author page, go to Edit Page in the top right hand corner. That will take you to the “manage permissions” screen. Go to the left menu bar and click on “basic information.” You should see “User Name” near the top of the page in the middle. Then Facebook will walk you through it from there. You can set up a nice, clean URL like http://www.facebook.com/AuthorJudy.
Now that’s a link people can remember. You can have it printed on bookmarks, put it in your email signature, etc., etc. Much better, right?
Just make sure you’re happy with it the way it is, because once you click that button, you can’t change it! And, make sure you’re happy with the Name on your page, because once you hit 100 fans, you can’t change that either.
Feel free to check out my author page at http://www.facebook.com/KSBrooksAuthor.
thanks, now I have https://www.facebook.com/The.Poet.Kender
Hey Kender, glad to hear it! Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Kat, you're so pragmatic! Good advice, though, folks.
Hi David, I just feel badly when I see that authors aren't taking advantage of this – it doesn't "look right" when you see that discombobulated URL. Thanks for spreading the word on Twitter. 🙂
Well…at least according to FB, you still need 25 fans. I'll do this once I get there! And thanks!
Laurie – how about posting the link to your page here so we can show you some love? 😀
No, you don't have to wait until you have 25 fans. I just put my page up today, I haven't got a single fan, and I still made it work. Go to http://www.facebook.com/TheIndiePENdents. Thanks, KS!!
Actually, Julia, it depends on how your page is categorized. If you're putting up an author page, it won't allow you to do it until you have 25 likes. But if you're putting up a service page, you can pretty much do it immediately. I did it for http://www.facebook.com/IndiesUnlimited the other night when we only had 11 likes.
🙂