SMBs CAN Get Vanity URLs

I previously wrote about the Facebook Vanity URL opportunity for SMBs and then was informed that Facebook Pages were required to have 1K fans to be eligible. That’s apparently not/no longer true, according to Inside Facebook:

However, as many Page owners have discovered, if your Facebook Page has less than 1,000 fans or was created after May 31, your Page won’t be eligible to get a vanity URL starting tonight. Instead, Facebook says you’ll have to wait until Sunday, June 28 to get a vanity URL for your Page.

Why is Facebook enforcing this rule? Essentially, to mitigate squatting. Facebook wants to make sure every vanity URL that gets registered in the system is authentic, and has put these restrictions in place to prevent speculators from creating thousands of Pages in order to squat on vanity URLs. However, this rule will delay legitimate Page owners with less than 1,000 fans from getting a vanity URL for two weeks as well.

Small business owners that have Facebook pages should register a Vanity URL that matches the business name. (The can also have separate personal pages.) Longer term this could turn out to be quite an important and effective marketing tool.