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June 12, 2009

Facebook URLs: Your Brand Name May Be Going Fast!

facebook_logo.pngAt 12:01 AM EST this Saturday the great race to secure your Facebook URL is on and the stakes are high.

This will allow people to transpose their real names onto their Facebook URL, allowing you to swap "www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789" with "www.facebook.com/John.Doe," for example.

This new ID will make your page more Google friendly, making you easier to track by creating better organic search results, more visibility and ultimately, better brand recall.

The Personal Branding blog flatly says that this is a "requirement" for personal branding. And maybe it should be, especially when one takes into account the potential trademark issues.

The Legal Technology Insider is a little worried about this, however:

According to Joanne Bone, head of Intellectual Property & Information Technology at Irwin Mitchell: "Due to the user generated nature of Facebook, allowing your trademark to be used by others could present a range of costly problems ranging from trademark infringement to defamation. While this can be seen as a unique opportunity, it may well present some very serious problems for trademark owners. You do not want to find that your brand has been 'hijacked' by someone with no connection to you and put at the end of one of the personal URLs.

Trademark owners only have until Saturday, June 13, to submit a form protecting their registered trademark.

This seems like a no-brainer if you have a trademark to protect, and if your brand is not registered, I suggest you burn the midnight oil this weekend and snag the name before somebody else does. The catch is that if you are not already on Facebook you'll have to log on with somebody else's details to protect your brand name.

At least one analyst says that while protecting your name on Facebook is a good idea, you need to "control the flow" as far as social media is concerned. This means focusing more on your own URL and not placing too much emphasis on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

He really does make a good point. Far too few companies have their own brand name as their URL, which should be made more of a priority if search results drive a significant portion of their business.

Still, I'd hate to see my brand name, or my personal name, get into a competitor's hands.

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Posted by William Lozito at June 12, 2009 8:45 AM
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