Saturday, June 13, 2009

So, what did you do on Friday night?

Well, I set my alarm for 10:45pm, stayed in, and watched the countdown on my screen in my living room with Erin and Libby. That would be the screen of my Facebook account, where thankfully I got to register my domain of www.facebook.com/carina

200,000 people registered in the first 3 minutes (go geeks, go!). 1 million in the first hour. What is the big deal? It isn't about this SEO thing people are talking about - it is all about branding. 


Then, after I got super excited, and tweeted my Facebook URL, I realized how bad I was doing at branding myself. I am a connection mess:
@NICKNAME
facebook.com/FIRSTNAME
linkedin.com/in/FULLNAME

So I fail. Brands, do as I say, not as I do. BE CONSISTENT.

One hashtag that I saw started (I believe by Facebook employees) is #/isthenew@.  Is it now just as essential to get your brand's /brandname as @brandname? Likely, if not even more. Facebook has been around longer, and gets more traffic than Twitter. That alone is enough to make most any brand want their own /brandname.  Now, Facebook is not putting up with squatters, and brands could register ahead of time with their registered trademark number, starting early last week. BUT I want numbers on how many were actually fast enough to do that.

I went and checked a few popular brands:
www.facebook.com/coke redirects to www.facebook.com/coca-cola
www.facebook.com/pepsi redirects to www.facebook.com/refresheverything
(BUT, http://www.facebook.com/apple is a 404 and someone is squatting on http://www.facebook.com/appleinc)

So it appears there is some more special treatment for brands going on, but I am guessing those are the brands that paid for their vanity URLs back when they were only available when you shelled out some $$$ for a branded Facebook page.

The next rush comes on June 28th when anyone can register a unique domain for their profile or page, even if they signed up for facebook after 5/30 or if their page has less than 1000 fans.  I recommend all brands get moving on this. Now. Get started now so that by June 28th you are ready.

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