Originally assigning random numbers to each person’s profile made it hard for someone to look up your public Facebook account in search engines. With the ability for personalized usernames, search engines will now be able to pick up the URLs just like they can with your Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and other various social media network accounts. This should allow your brand to be ranked in search engines along with your social media networks, blog, business site or your own personal website, making it easy for people to connect and learn more about you. As expected, Facebook will not let you choose generic terms for your username such as shoes or butter, which will eliminate competition for choosing keywords that are often times nearly impossible to rank for, without the help of SEO professionals.

The greatest business benefit with this, besides easier collateral brand (ex: www.facebook.com/companyname) is Reputation Management.  The first 10 results in Google for a “branded” search phrase is your reputation.  Smart, innovative companies are optimizing social media profiles, press releases & other “rank-worthy” content so the first 10 results for their company name(s) present positive sentiment. We’re seeing successful execution with Triangle Direct Media clients.

Now with short and direct URLs it will be much easier to share your Facebook profile with others. You will now be able easily address your Facebook profile URL over the phone and even fit your new custom URL on business cards and into ad space. Usernames can only include alphanumeric characters with the option of a period or full stop, and must be five characters in length. Users must choose wisely, because once the Facebook username is set it cannot be changed.

To select your username, visit the link below after 12:01am on June 13th:
http://www.facebook.com/username/.

Below is a video that Heath in our office ran across in You Tube. I have to admit I had never seen it. He ran across the video in a search for how other people are defining Web2.0 … Here it is and also a link to Prof. Wesch’s video on youtube. This is a good 4 minutes of video showing where the Internet is headed. If your company is not prepared at the very least you will lose sales by not embracing 2.0 marketing concepts.

The future for 2.0 Marketing is exciting, fun, effective, and the companies that employ 2.0 Marketing early stand to gain a foothold in the Web 2.o landscape.

Keep doing what you are doing if it generates results, but look ahead to what changes on the Internet are being brought about by blogging, social media sites, and user generated content to ensure your company’s place in front of the 2.0 Consumer.

Thanks to Prof. Wesch for making Web 2.0 easy to understand.

Here is a Link to the YouTube Video Web 2.0 by Prof. Wesch

Or Click the picture below and it will play right here.