The Facebook Fanpage URL land grab of ‘09, reciprocity, and Social Media.

Having been an avid Facebooker for the last two years, I was recently getting very disgruntled with the amount of ‘noise’ I would see filtering down through my stream. “I thought Facebook was for connecting with meaningful human beings”, I would lament, as I saw increasing numbers of my friends becoming fans of inane things such as “Sleep”, “Rainbows”, “The Beach”, and various objects, both concrete and abstract. What would further frustrate me would be the amount of Fans said Sleep page had. In the millions sometimes. Seriously? People would rather fan a page devoted to catching a few extra z’s then my well thought out business devoted to social and content marketing and the words that make it all happen?

Apparently so. As of Sunday morning, my Contented Copy page had 5 fans. I was one, my brother and a friend, and then two other women I think were members of the most recent and wonderful Social Media Success Summit. When I heard the news that Facebook was opening up their Vanity URLs to pages who had 25 or more fans, I was quite happy. I figured I could just ask (read: beg) 20 more of my 150 odd friends on FB to become a fan, clearly state the reason why, and voila, Contented Copy would have it’s own URL. But alas, as most of you now know, Facebook changed the rules quite suddenly just a few hours before the URL land grab began.

Well, I wonder if they were ready for what happened next. I heard from Mari Smith, the Facebook Guru extraordinaire, that a special social media chat had been set up to help people get their 100 fans, with the expectation that you would reciprocate by fanning others pages in return. I didn’t wait up on Sunday night, thinking it was a lost cause, so it wasn’t until Monday morning when I opened my Facebook account that I noticed this link to http://www.savorchat.com/chat/facebook-fan-pages-socialbees from Mari. I headed right over, and over the course of the next 2 days, I finally reached my 100 fan limit, and acquired http://www.facebook.com/contentedcopy

It was hard work, let me tell you. I also passed the 1,000 follower mark on Twitter during that time frame (which I’d planned to have a wee party in my office for) but that passed by with nary a ‘whoot’ to be heard as I intently focused on getting that *darn* URL. I also personally invited about 40 of my friends and family on Facebook again, with strategically worded begging. I think I may have inadvertently agreed to name my next child after someone in return, (HAH! Joke’s on them!) but I was very pleased and honoured that almost all of them fanned my page.

So, the irony in this whole Vanity URL race thing is this: Facebook stated that the reason it changed its policy on fan limits at the last moment was this:

As of yesterday, those pages with 25 or more fans could register but today Facebook increased that limit to 100 fans. This has removed over 401,000 Pages that were previously going to be eligible for receiving a username this evening. This restriction is understandable as Facebook wants to prevent any squatters from creating numerous pages and quickly inviting enough users that they can grab usernames. (allfacebook.com)

Not to mention the Pages that had under 25 fans (like mine). I thought at first that I would have more ‘noise’ on my Facebook stream from all the pages I had fanned, but then it hit me: I was fanning pages of ‘real’ people, with real businesses and goals and aspirations. We were in a sense, networking. I know I met a few people that might turn into colleagues/clients down the road. I wonder what the final number of fan page URL’s will be. Definitely a lot more than they expected.

What power exists in Social Media! Having a vanity URL makes it easier for my business to be found online, and also claims me a little more of the Social Media ‘pie’. Facebook currently has over 240 million users, so you can start to see why having a customized username and vanity URL is so important.

How about this one from InsideFacebook.com: “If Facebook were a country, it would now have the 4th largest population in the world.”

Some have said that having a Facebook username or fanpage url is the culmination of our online identity. I know I am not the only one who wonders if Facebook strategically changed the rules at the last minute for a reason. If so, I’d like that thank them, as I wouldn’t have met all these interesting people otherwise.

And while I consider myself one of Sleep’s biggest fans, I still haven’t fanned that page