A Facebook Page Address Full of Numbers

An address nobody can say

A Facebook page created without a username gets an address built from the page name and a long string of digits. It works, but it is almost impossible to use anywhere except as a link.

Nobody can read it out over the phone. It will not fit on a business card without wrapping onto two lines, and on a sign it looks like a mistake.

So most businesses with one quietly stop printing it. The menu says find us on Facebook, with a logo, and leaves the customer to search.

Which works badly when the name is common. A Facebook search for a restaurant name brings up every restaurant with a similar one.

Where the long address causes trouble

• Printed menus and cards, where it wraps or gets left off.
• Signs and window decals, read from across a parking lot.
• Phone calls, when someone asks where to see your specials.
• Your own website, where the footer link looks like a typo.
• Facebook's own search, where similar names compete with yours.

The last is the one owners underestimate. Telling people to search for you hands them a list, and Facebook decides the order, not you.

Why the numbers are there

Every page has an ID number, and until someone chooses a username, the page's address is built from it.

Many pages were set up in a hurry: by a relative, by a member of staff who has since left, or by the owner on an afternoon when the username step looked optional. It was, and still is.

Only someone with the admin role on the page can choose one, which is why it often waits until a person with that role thinks of it.

Choosing the username

Use the business name, or the shortest version of it customers say. A username can contain letters, numbers and periods, and needs at least five characters.

Avoid anything that will date: a year, a promotion, a staff member's name. The username is going on printed material that will outlast all three.

If the plain name is taken, add the town or neighbourhood rather than random digits. A name with a place in it still reads as the business; one with digits looks like a copy.

Facebook ignores capital letters in the address, so you can print it with each word capitalised to make it readable, and it still works however someone types it.

Check the other networks first

Before claiming the Facebook name, check that the same name is free on Instagram and Twitter, so customers only have one to remember.

The rules differ slightly. Twitter allows fifteen characters and no periods, and Facebook allows no underscores, so letters and numbers only, fifteen characters or fewer, works everywhere.

If the name is held by an old account of your own that nobody uses, deciding whether to revive it or let it go is a separate question.

A worked example

A family-run Filipino restaurant in a suburban strip mall does a steady takeout and catering trade. Its Facebook page is busier than its website: daily specials, weekend lechon, trays of pancit and lumpia for parties.

The page was set up years ago by a relative who has since moved to another city, and its address was the restaurant's name followed by fifteen digits.

The takeout menu, the catering flyer and the window decal all said find us on Facebook, with the logo and no address.

Customers who searched found three restaurants with similar names in other cities, one of them with more likes, and some sent catering enquiries to the wrong one.

The owner's daughter, an admin on the page, claimed a username made of the restaurant's name and its city, after checking the same name was free on Instagram.

The next print run of the takeout menu carried the address on one line, with capitals marking each word, and so did the catering flyer and a new window decal. The website's Facebook link was updated the same day.

What happens to the old address

Nothing printed with the old numbered address stops working. It still leads to the page, so there is no need to reprint everything at once.

Change the materials as they run out: the next batch of cards, the next menu, the next sign.

Treat the username as permanent once it is printed. Changing it later is possible, but it means another round of reprinting, and the old name may not keep working.

Putting it where people look

Print it short: facebook.com followed by the username, with no https and no www. It fits on one line of a menu and can be read aloud in one breath.

Put it on takeout menus, business cards, receipts, the window, the vehicle and the email signature everyone in the business uses.

On the website, point the Facebook icon at the clean address, and check on a phone that the link opens the right page.

Messages and mentions

Once a page has a username, it shows under the page name with an at sign in front, which makes the page easier to find and to tag in posts.

The same name works as a short Messenger link: m.me followed by the username. For a business that takes orders by message, that is worth printing on a flyer too.

The counter-case

A business that never prints its Facebook address, and whose customers reach the page through the website, gets less from this. It is still worth the minute it takes.

A page nobody posts on has a bigger problem than its address. Fix that first, because a clean address on a menu sends people to a page that looks abandoned.

And a name that is taken everywhere is not worth contorting. One short, readable variation used on every network beats three different exact matches.

For most businesses: claim the username, match it across networks, and print it.

Claiming the name

1. Look at your page's address in a browser.
2. Check the name is free on Instagram and Twitter.
3. Claim the username from an admin account.
4. Claim the same name on the other networks.
5. Update the link on your website.
6. Print it with capitals so the words read.
7. Add it to each item as it is reprinted.

Step two must come before step three. Claiming a username without checking the other networks often leaves a business with three slightly different names to print and customers guessing which is which.

Deciding what to do with accounts that have gone quiet is covered in a Twitter account nobody has posted on since 2014.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.