In 2009, when Facebook introduced custom URLs (also known as vanity URLs) for your profile and fan pages, Facebook claimed that the custom URL you choose can be only set once. Once the custom URL (example http://facebook.com/techthinker) has been set, it cannot be changed to another URL. But it looks like Facebook is giving a second chance to people who didn’t wisely choose their custom URLs for their profile page.

To change the custom URL of your profile page, simply go to Account –> Account Settings –> Username and click the link change. You will be now able to change your username for your profile page.

If you want to change the custom URL for your fan page for a second time, then you may be out of luck. I haven’t figured out how to do it.

Transferring the Profile Page URL to Fan Page URL

When Facebook introduced custom URLs last year, I secured the custom URL (techthinker) for my profile page as I couldn’t secure it for my fan page. In 2009, you should have at least 100 fans in order to get a custom URL for your fan page. Now this number has been reduced to 25.

Given that Facebook allows me to change the username for a second time, I was able to change my existing username (techthinker). By changing my username, I was able to release the URL techthinker.

Soon after I changed my username, I went to http://facebook.com/username and set the URL techthinker as the URL for my Facebook fan page!

The ability to change username for a second time gives you a chance to trade usernames with others. It also gives you a chance to transfer your profile page URL to your Fan Page URL.

Join me on Facebook.com/TechThinker

So far I have written on how to choose a good Twitter username and how to choose a Twitter profile picture. Today, in this post we will look at how to write up a great Twitter bio. Writing a Twitter bio is hard because you only have 160 characters at your disposal. The challenge is to get your message to your customers in 160 characters or less. While a great profile picture will make a good first impression, a well written bio can allow potential clients to make a connection with your business.

When writing up your bio you need to address the following:

1. Who you are & What you do

In this section you would describe your job title or area of expertise. For example, Software Developer, Life Coach, Internet Marketer etc. If you own a business you can describe your business. For example, “Principle Designer at NY based design boutique Graphic Design Co”.

2. How can you help

In this section you need to tell people how they can benefit from your products and services. For example, “I help businesses to create exceptional brand identities at affordable rates”.

3. Words describing your personal attributes

It is not all about your business. People like to know your personality as well. Since point 1 and point 2 would have taken most of the text in your bio, you can use keywords to describe your personal attributes. For example, Papa Bear, Hockey Fan, Avid Photographer, World Traveller etc.

The following is the profile description of Christine Gallagher who is a social media coach. This profile has almost all of the attributes that I have mentioned above.

Teaching small biz owners how to use relationship marketing & social media to attract more biz. Adores animals. Jersey Girl Entrepreneur. Info Junkie. Heck Yeah

Things to Avoid

It is important that you avoid the following when creating your Twitter bio.

1. Do not use the bio text to link to any other websites you own.
2. Avoid any sales pitch. The bio is there to help people get to know you better. No one will buy your products until they get to know you.
3. Avoid slang including SMS language.

What is your Twitter bio? Share it in the comments so that you can get feedback from me and other readers.

In my last post, I provided some tips for selecting a good username on Twitter. In this post I will give you some tips to get your profile picture right. The tips in this post not only apply to Twitter but also for other Social Networks.

Your profile picture is the first point of contact for a person who is interested in knowing more about you. Therefore, it is important that you give some thought into the selection of your profile picture. As a business owner you need to project the right image to your clients.

Here are some of my tips for selecting a good profile picture. These tips are more applicable for people who use Twitter for business purposes.

1. Be yourself. Do not fake your personality. It is very important that your clients’ expectations about you are met if both of you had to meet face to face.
2. Take the picture in a relaxed position. Wear clothes that your are comfortable with and ones that reflect your style and personality.
3. Take the picture in a brightly lit environment.
4. It is preferable to have a neutral color background.
5. Do not have other distractions in your photo. For example, do not take a picture with your dog. Your clients are not interested in your dog. They are interested in getting to know you better.
6. Only have other people and objects in your picture, if they are related to your business or profession. For example, if you are a professional Dog Trainer then you got to have a picture with a dog!
7. Make direct eye contact on the picture, it is important that you come across as a confident person in the eyes of your prospective clients.
8. Avoid Logos! If you own a business or a brand, do not use the logo as your profile picture. In social networks people are more interested in making connections to people, not organizations. Even if you use your company name as the username in your Twitter account, it is important to show your face in the profile picture.
9. Keep your profile picture consistent across different networks such as Twitter, Facebook etc. This allows potential clients to easily recognize you.
10. Take multiple pictures in different postures with varying smiles.
11. Ask family and friends for their opinion. Get a vote. Choose the picture that gets the most number of votes.

I hope you found the above tips useful. Add your own tips in the comments section. Thank you.

As a business owner you may want to give some thought into the selection of your Twitter username. A good Twitter username can give you an advantage in marketing yourself or your business.

When it comes to Twitter usernames you have the following 3 choices:

1. Use Your Real Name (example @RichardBranson)

This is the best option for business owners who want to promote themselves directly. For example, if you are a real estate agent you may want to promote yourself to your local community. Using your real name is very effective on Social Networks because people are interested in making connection with a real person instead of a company. Also, this option is more suitable if you intend to use Twitter for personal use.

2. Use the Name of Your Business or Brand (example @TechThinker)

If people are going to find your business using your brand name then it is important to use your brand name as your Twitter username. For example, I use the name of my blog (TechThinker) as my username on Twitter since I want to promote my business under this brand name.

3. Use a Keyword Rich and Descriptive Name (example @WhatsOnToronto)

Some people prefer to use a keyword rich Twitter username that describes the nature of their business. For example, the username name @WhatsOnToronto is self explanatory. It is not hard to figure out what this Twitter profile is all about. Google pays a lot of attention to content generated by Social Networks. Therefore using a keyword rich username may allow you to take advantage of Google search results.

Tips for Selecting a Twitter Username

1. A Twitter Username cannot exceed the maximum 15 character limit.

2. A Twitter Username can be changed without creating a new account. You will NOT lose your followers due to a username change.

3. If you happen to change your username, make sure to immediately create a new Twitter account with your old username. Simply leave a tweet (in the newly created account) indicating the fact that you have moved to a new Twitter username.

4. If your real name is already taken, then try a username with initials (example @RobASmith) or try a name with an adjective or description (example @RealtorDavid).

5. Whenever possible try to keep your username short. Your username will consume characters when it appears on a tweet or retweet. Therefore, keep your user name as short as you can.

6. Avoid underscores(“_”) on your username. On many mobile phones it is often hard to type the underscore. Not all mobile phones support the underscore directly on the keyboard, even if the underscore is found on the keyboard it might be hard to locate it.

Do you have any other tips to choose a good username? Please share them below.

While Twitter as a company is not making any money, entrepreneurs and businesses can make money on Twitter in number of ways. Twitter is a very valuable tool to promote your brand, build relationships with clients and eventually make money by selling your products and services.

So, how your business can make money on Twitter? Here are some of my thoughts.

1. Promoting Products and Services

One of the most elementary methods to make money on Twitter is to promote your products and services. Deals and Contests are two techniques that you can use to promote your products on Twitter.  Make sure that you do not over use these techniques. If you tweet about product deals very frequently your followers will probably ignore you.

2. Turn Followers into Marketers

This is a very powerful technique where you can turn your followers into marketers who are willing to sell your products. For example, you could pay your followers a referral fee for every product they sell for you. Alternatively you can reward your followers with a point system where they can earn points for referring products that can be later redeemed for something valuable.

3. Turn Followers into Creators and Helpers

If you are developing a product and want to get the best ideas, you can turn your followers into creators or helpers to deliver that product. For example, let us assume that you have developed a new software and want people to perform usability testing. People who follow your company on Twitter are probably interested in your software too. With in no time you will have many people willing to test your product and provide their feedback.

4. Reaching out to Clients in Different Geographic Locations

Twitter can be used as a broadcasting tool to reach new clients in different geographic locations. Let us assume that you conduct seminars and workshops on Personal Development. You travel the country city by city holding these workshops. You can tweet your workshop details and location information when you are in a city. This allows you to get new clients from that area.

5. Lead Generation

Using Twitter you can get new leads and convert them to loyal clients. The best way to do this is by adding value. For example, if you are a real estate agent you can use Twitter to provide various information relating to real estate. For example, mortgage advice, home staging tips, market trends etc. When you provide value, people are more likely to notice you. By adding value you become a trusted and credible source in your industry. When people view you or your business as the expert in the field, they are more likely to do business with you.

The above points are some ideas that came to my mind. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. If you have other ideas and methods to make money on Twitter please feel free to share them below.

Photo Credit: luc legay's photostream

Flavors.me is a simple site that pulls all your social media content into a single location. To use flavors.me you simply signup for an account and start importing your content from other services into flavors.me. The social media sites and services supported in flavors.me include Twitter, FaceBook, Tumblr, Posterous, Blogger, Wordpress, LinkedIn, GoodReads, NetFlix, last.fm, YouTube, flickr, Four Square, Etsy and your blog’s RSS feed.

I like this service because it is very simple to use. Keeping track of a person across a number of social medial sites and services can be overwhelming. Flavors.me allows you to share all of your social content in a single location. The site has a minimalist and intuitive design.

You can check out my flavors.me page at http://flavors.me/techthinker

While flavors.me is free to use, the company provides a premium service for $20 a year. The premium service offers Custom Domain name support, web statistics and a contact form for your readers to contact you.

Check out this cool flavors.me video. I hope you like it.

Flavors.me from Jack Zerby on Vimeo.

The following is a guest post by Zack Shapiro.

Zack Shapiro is an entrepreneur, tech blogger, journalist and world traveler. You can find him on Twitter @ZackShapiro and on his blog at ZackShapiro.com.

Over to you Zack:

Humankind has never been more linked together than we are today. And tomorrow, we’ll be even more connected.

With the increasing levels of connectivity, we became slaves to our means of digital outreach. Facebook, blogging, Twitter, email, Skype and the list goes on and on.

Chances are you suffer from being incredibly over-connected to at least one of the tools listed above.

It’s time to begin to break away. If it sounds scary, don’t worry. We’ll take baby steps.

As with any change in habits small steps are important towards reaching your goal of being digitally free. Jumping into things cold turkey often leads to a relapse because we can’t mentally commit.

My foray into digital relaxation began with No Email Saturdays, where, as the name suggests, I take a break from email for one-seventh of the week.

At first it was harder than I imagined it would be. I had no problem leaving Mail alone on my laptop but I forgot to turn off the email on my iPhone. That meant I was constantly checking my phone not to see what the email was but to see if I had gotten anymore. As the day went on and the number of unread emails climbed higher I was no better off than digging into the actual emails themselves.

There was still digital weight on my mind. This you do not want.

If you’re apprehensive about cutting the cord remember this: unless you work for an organization that requires you to be connected all the time, you don’t need to be.

Sure an email on Wednesday morning about Friday’s meeting may be an important one but ask yourself this, “What could I possibly get on Saturday that can’t be taken care of on Sunday?

Leave the Mail our Outlook icon alone, don’t go to your webmail and turn all email on your phone off. Every phone has a way to switch it off without deleting precious accounts or stored email. Leave it all alone.

If you find yourself itching to see what’s waiting in your inbox remember this: You have to physically allow yourself to check your email. Be strong. I believe in you.

It has been a little over a month now with No Email Saturdays and I love the concept. It frees my mind from whatever’s coming up and I trust that whatever I get on Saturday can be dealt with later. It’s unrealistic to expect yourself to be connected at all times.

Now I’m ready to take the next step: No SocMed (Social Media) Saturdays.

You may not be able to get to me by email on Saturdays but you can still get my attention through my blog, an @reply on my Twitter account, a comment on Flickr, etc. So I’m still connected; I’m still checking.

Next Saturday I plan to cut out the blogging. The following week, Twitter. Those are my big two. Identify yours and make a plan. Set goals based on your level of comfort after realizing what the extra free time means.

Go outside. Spend time with friends. Watch TV without your computer around. Read a book. Go for a run. Have some fun.

A quick post on how you can use the new Twitter List feature to attract followers and get popular on Twitter!

1. Create a content rich list

Create a list that a person in your niche would love following. For example, if you are into Logo Design, create a list called “100 Top Logo Designers”. The trick is to add yourself to this list as well! Now you have done the hard work, people who are into graphic design would love to follow this list. When they follow this list they get your tweets as well!

2. Categorize all of your following into lists

Don’t leave your followings uncategorized. Categorize all of your followings into different lists. When people notice that you have listed them, they might want to follow you back!

3. Give meaningful list names and make people feel good

When creating a list, give it a meaningful and eye catching name, for example, “Amazing Graphic Designers”. People feel special when they find that they have been categorized into a list called “Amazing Graphic Designers”. This means they will promote your list because it is better PR for them, as a result you get more exposure on Twitter!

Do you have tips on using Twitter Lists? Please Leave a Comment

Today, when I logged onto Twitter, I saw the following message on my home page.

The Twitter List feature allows you to group your followers into different lists. So that you can easily keep track of Tweets within each group. For example, you may create a list for family members, a list for professional bloggers who you follow and a list for your friends.

To create a list, you simply click the button “Create a new list” and the following dialog will appear:

In the above dialog you can specify the name of the list and set it’s security privilege. A public list can be accessed by others while a private list is for your own purpose.

Once you have created the list, you can add friends to it.

When you click on following or followers, you will see a new list icon that allows you to add the person to a list. In this case I am adding @2emc to my list named “Test”.

Once you have created your list, it will appear under the home section.

In the above figure you can see that I have created 2 lists. One called “Test” and other called “ProfessionalBloggers”.

When you click on the list name, you will be taken to the list home page where you can see the tweets from people who belong to that list.

The listed label (see below - displayed beside following and followers) shows the number of lists that contain your profile. In addition you can also see which lists are following you and which lists you follow (see below).

This post provided an introduction to the Twitter List feature. I’ll write my thoughts on lists in another post.

If you are on Twitter the most common question that your friends ask is probably “How many followers do you have?”. Everyone seems to be obsessed with this number. In order to create a large number of followers, most of us Auto Follow anyone who follows us. While Auto Following has its own merits, following a large number of users will reduce the quality of your incoming Twitter feed.

Imagine only following the people you are really interested in! How great it would be to follow the top 100 bloggers in your niche. Having fewer followings mean you will pay more attention to your feed. This gives you a better opportunity to interact and mingle with the people you follow. When people notice that you are in conversation with high profile users, they think high of you as well, and they want to follow you too!

A while ago my Twitter following was really low. I never missed any Tweet from my favorite bloggers. I was able to interact with them. I have seen on number of occasions that my followers spiked when a popular blogger replied to my Tweet. But, with a large incoming Twitter feed (due to Auto Follow) you miss these valuable opportunities.

You might think that the solution to following a large number of people is to filter out unwanted Tweets. There are many applications that can be used to filter Tweets from your incoming feed. But as the Twitter user  community gets more educated everyone would be using some kind of filtering tool. May be 90% of your followers already have some type of filtering in place. You think you have 10,000 followers!. But only 1,000 are really listening to you!

So is it time to stop Auto Following? Should we simply follow only the folks who we are genuinely interested in? Your thoughts and comments are welcome.