The Mad Dash to Brand

Online marketers, start your engines. This Saturday at 12:01 a.m. EST (9:01 p.m. on Friday, PST), Facebook will allow both users and brands to claim a “vanity URL” on the site. But, act quickly—URLs will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis.

So, what exactly is a vanity URL? Vanity URLs refer to the URL connected to your specific Facebook profile or Fan Page. With a vanity URL, my Facebook URL would be www.facebook.com/victoria instead of www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456. The implications for brands interested in or already maintaining Fan pages on Facebook is big. From Mashable:

The vanity URL is an important aspect of most social media websites. Being able to choose the URL for your social profile (i.e. Twitter.com/BenParr) not only makes it easy to share with others, but helps you claim a little piece of social media space as your own.

There will be an inevitable gold rush for names on June 13th, and thus there will be many disappointments, complaints, and issues to sort out once the system goes live. Nonetheless, this should be a positive step towards making Facebook profiles a more shareable and personal experience.

Gary V also does a great job of summing it up:



This service will be so useful both to individuals and brands—wouldn’t YOU rather go by your own name instead of some long string of numbers? And, having such an easy-to-remember URL will mean that brands can start aggressively marketing the URL on all of their collateral, which will make the content brands post to their Fan pages all the more important.

As a big proponent of online branding, I can tell you where I’ll be Friday night at 9:01.