Starting Saturday at 12:01am your time, Facebook began allowing users to choose their own “usernames” to function as vanity URLs (i.e. facebook.com/cherylharrison instead of facebook.com/randomassstringofnumbers444325i345uo1) I waited up that night to snag plain ‘ol facebook.com/Cheryl but someone with the advantage of living a few time zones ahead of me had already grabbed it, so I took “CherylHarrison.” If you haven’t grabbed your vanuty URL on Facebook yet, click here. For pages, you have to have more than 1,000 fans (prior to May 30th) to reserve a custom URL, for now. Anyway, this process reminded me of a helpful site for the social media savvy:
The site is called “KnowEm” and checks the availability of your most frequently used usernames/your name (which IMHO should be your usernames) on 120 popular social media sites ranging from YouTube and MySpace to crap I know nothing about like Ball Hype and Disqus.
Check out who is using your online identity and maybe discover some new sites you can claim that identity on. For example, KnowEm allowed me to see that there are two sites with a “cherylharrison” that ISN’T me.
(OK I stole the “and so can you” thing from Steven Colbert’s book. Sue me.)
But as Chris Brogan recently wrote, having the usernames or being on certain sites isn’t really the important thing, “It’s never about the sites and services. Never forget that. YOU add value to them, not the other way around.”
So don’t forget… owning your name or your niche username all over the interwebz doesn’t make you valuable. Your content still has to be worthwhile.
KTHX. Smooch.
Michael Durwin says:
I’m not sure who said that owning your name on a social network has value to anyone, but yourself of course. To say that the sites and services are not important is like saying you don’t need a car to get to work. Of course, you could walk or ride a bike, but it’s not efficient is it? While your content is important, at least to those who care about it, the sites are important as a way to bring your content to your audience, more importantly, to bring your audience to your content. The idea that having a consistent user name across social networks, or being on specific sites isn’t important is part of what shows the lack of solid marketing experience and knowledge in so-called social media experts.
It’s pretty simple: if JohnnyX is the most brilliant content creator on Earth but uses the names skterzbcool on Twitter, Fred J. Samplson on Facebook, iknowitallsodontpretend on FriendFeed… how do people find his content? By diluting his brand with naming inconsistencies, JohnnyX has put a barrier up to his content. It’s like an ecommerce site making the Buy Now button small and hard to find. Do you really want to make it hard for users to engage with you? It’s not a bad idea if you’re trying to weed users out, but if you WANT people to find you, why not make it easy?
Jun 15, 2009, 1:50 pmCheryl says:
Thanks for the comment, Michael. The point I was trying to make by adding the last part in (and 10pm blogging after a few Coronas definitely watered down that point) was that claiming “CherylHarrison” or “MarketingGuru” or whatever it may be on 50 sites doesn’t itself mean anything, unless the content I am feeding to those networks is valuable. I definitely agree that consistency in your presence is important to establishing a strong online brand.
Jun 15, 2009, 2:17 pm