What is Your Social Media Address?

Do you ever get asked what your address to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or maybe even Google Buzz is?

I know that I have asked people what “their address” is so I can easily connect with them and I have found that a lot of people either don’t know their address, don’t know how to find their address or they are still giving out the long obnoxious address that is the original default one.

When I give out one of my various social media links I also get asked why I have a nice easy to remember one.

So today I thought I would go through how to find your current link and how to get one of those nice easy to remember ones.

How to Find/Claim Your Facebook Link

When you first sign up for Facebook you are given a long number that becomes part of your link directly to your profile. This is generally hard to remember and even harder to enter directly. They look something like this: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1072084083

But about a year ago Facebook started allowing people to choose a vanity url for their profile. So you can get something like this http://facebook.com/cindyclemens instead of that other impossible to remember thing.

The only thing holding you back would be if the one you want is already taken.

To claim the address you want you will need to log into your Facebook account. Then up in the browser address bar you will enter this address: http://facebook.com/username.

Once you are on this page you will be able to enter in the address you want. If it is available you will be asked to confirm that this is your choice. If it is not available you will be offered other possible options.

Once you have made your choice and confirmed it, then your new address will be active.

BEWARE: You cannot change this once you have set it. If you want to or need to change it in the future you will have to cancel your entire account and start over. So choose carefully and check your spelling!

Hint: You will also be able to choose one of those nice links for your pages too, if you have at least 25 “fans”.

What is Your Twitter Address?

Many people who are new to Twitter don’t know the answer to this question. Luckily Twitter has made it pretty easy.

Your Twitter address is http://twitterm.com + your username.

For example, when I go and log into my twitter account my username is cindyclemens. So my Twitter address is http://twitter.com/cindyclemens

One nice thing about Twitter is that they allow you to change your username (and therefore your address). As long as the new username you want is available you can change it. Although I do not recommend you do this unless you have some kind of a good reason. When you change your username any links out there will now be broken, or worse yet they will go to the next person that chooses to use your old twitter username.

If you decide you do need to change your username/twitter address (maybe you didn’t know it would be your address when you signed up ). You can do so by logging into your account and clicking on the word settings in the top right corner. Then just change where it says username. The system will immediately let you know if the new choice is available or not. Then you simply save the changes.

Remember: If you change this, the next time you log in your will use the new username instead of the original one.

What About LinkedIn?

Like most of the other social networking sites, when you register for LinkedIn you will get a nice long hard to remember link to your profile. It will look something like this: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/austin-j-feldman/7/572/477

What you want is one that is a bit easier to remember (and therefore type into email signatures, other site’s detail information, etc. So they let you set up what they call a “Personal URL”. Like Twitter you can change your url in LinkedIn anytime you wish to. They do caution you that when you create your first “Personal URL” your original LinkedIn given url will remain active. But if you change your “Personal URL” your old “Personal URL” will no longer work.

To claim your LinkedIn Personal URL (like this one: http://linkedin.com/in/cindyclemens) you will need to log into your LinkedIn account.

To the top of the screen under Profile select “Edit Profile”. On the screen you are taken to click on the word edit next to your current LinkedIn url. At the top of the page you are taken to click the word edit one more time next to the current link. Now you will be given the option to change the link.

There….

So now when someone asks you what your Social Networking links are you can easily rattle them off with no issues. And if a site you are registering for has an option to add additional links (say from Twitter, Facebook, etc) you will be able to fill in the fields without having to go log into every profile you have on the internet.  (Come on you know you do that….)

Here are My Social Networking Links:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cindyclemens
Facebook: http://facebook.com/cindyclemens
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.in/cindyclemens
Google Buzz: http://www.google.com/profiles/cindyjclemens
Foursquare: http://foursquare.com/user/cindyclemens

If you are looking to connect with people online in various social networking sites, feel free to add your links in the Thoughts area below. Then everyone who come to view this post will be able to connect with you.