If there are a few people on Facebook with the same name as you it can make it hard for friends and family to find you. How do you go about letting them know how to get to your profile?

My personal facebook profile is at www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=720276742. This is a bit of a mouthful to say the least and is prone to typos.

I recently found out how to set up a username so now you can just go to www.facebook.com/peteoshea. This is much easier to relay to any potential friends…

Please bear in mind that I only accept people I know as friends on my personal profile. I also have a Facebook page for readers of this blog. The usual address of that is www.facebook.com/pages/peteoshea/134113493281729 which is also far too long to remember. You can also set up a username for any page you may maintain but you have to have at least 25 fans, or people who like the page. I haven’t reached that number yet so instead I have created a much shorter link, peteoshea.co.uk/facebook, which redirects to my Facebook page.

Sound interesting, then read on…

How To Create Facebook Username

First off you have to already have a Facebook account. So if you haven’t already got one simply head over to www.facebook.com and set one up. You can then attach the username to your account.

There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to find out how to create yourself a username from within your Facebook account. The trick is to go directly to this link, www.facebook.com/username after you have logged into your account. From here you get the option to set up a short username.

This username has to be unique, for obvious reasons, so you may have to try a few different names until you find a suitable free one. You have to think about this a bit as once it has been set that’s it, there is no option to change it…

You also get the option to set up usernames for any pages you maintain but as I mentioned earlier you have to have a certain number of followers before you are allowed to do this.

How To Create Redirect Link

The other option is to create a link that forwards traffic to the full Facebook URL. In my case I have a link from the domain of this blog that gives my a nice short address to relay to people who may be interested, peteoshea.co.uk/facebook.

As this blog uses WordPress I use a plugin called Pretty Link. With this plugin you simply set up the target address and the link you want to use.

You can also select the redirection type 301 (permanent) or 307 (temporary), but either should be fine, in fact the options are hidden by default to keep things as simple as possible. I use the temporary redirection in case I want to use the link for something else in the future but I don’t think it really makes too much difference either way.

This redirection could also be done manually with a .htaccess file but this is probably a bit deep for me to go into here. If you want to go down this route then try entering something like ‘301 redirect’ into Google.

Do you find tips like this one, or Improve Your Image, useful? Please let me know in the comments below…

Image: Pete O’Shea