by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia

Back in June Facebook allowed their account holders to create customized URLs (what Facebook called usernames and people also call vanity URLs). So instead of sending people to this link:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=0000000000

You can send them here: http://www.facebook.com/lenawest

However, if, like millions of other people, you had better things to do and were otherwise engaged on June 13th, 2009, you may have missed the opportunity to snag your vanity URL on Facebook.

Here's one quick and easy way to get around that:

Head over to GoDaddy or some other such domain name registrar and grab an easy-to-remember-and-spell domain name like FacebookJaneDoe.com or JaneDoeFacebook.com. Once you've registered that domain name, activate domain forwarding on the "user friendly" domain to the looooong URL. If you don't know how to use domain forwarding, call up the company where you registered your domain and have them walk you through it. It's free and will take about 5 minutes.If you can click a mouse, you can do this. No tech degree required. Promise.

If you want to see whether or not you can still grab your Facebook "username"; log into your Fabeook account and then head over to this page: http://www.facebook.com/username/ If your username is already set up, it will tell you what it is and if not, you'll see a way to set it up.

HINT: Even if you don't plan to use Facebook, you might want to grab your vanity URL to make sure you preserve your brand's integrity. Plus, it's a great way to build up Google Juice.

If you happen to have a copyright and someone is "squatting" on your vanity URL, you can let the Facebook team know, by clicking here, and they'll be on it like the Green Hornet (hopefully).