The first time I saw a status update with a link underneath a custom text, I thought Facebook was already supporting HTML in status updates and wall posts. I tried writing some stuff in basic HTML but was rendered as plain text and realized it’s all some sort of trick after all. Of course we all know you can tag people and mention pages in your status update or comment by typing @ before writing the name but it all gets even better if you can mask/hide that fan page or profile name with some sort of custom text. You can even write a whole status update or comment linking directly to your profile or facebook fan page. I bet you want to learn how, right?
Before you can do this, you have to first know your profile ID or that of the person or page you’re tagging.
How To Get The Profile ID Of A Facebook User Or Fan Page
For users who do not already have a facebook username, you can get the profile ID by just going to the profile, checking your address bar and copying out the last set numbers in the URL. For example, the ID for this profile is shown in red:
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890000
For users or pages with facebook usernames or vanity url such as http://www.facebook.com.com/username, enter http://graph.facebook.com/username in your browser.
Be sure to replace username with your own valid username, for example, http://graph.facebook.com/doncaprio . The page that displays should show you your profile ID.
For more on finding facebook profile ID, read this post.
Linking Your Updates To Facebook Profiles Or Fan Page With Custom Text
The trick is just a simple piece of code and you can create a really funny update with it. It’s as simple as the code written below:
Profile ID – 165091976865893
Display Text – YOUR TEXT HERE
That’s all you’re gonna be needing. Be sure to replace profile ID and custom text with what you want to be displayed in place of the profile or fan page.
My last status update on facebook was written as this:
It appeared exactly as shown below:
It’s a really funny update and you can copy that into your status update, just be sure to edit the profile IDs and text that will be shown instead of the link. Remember, you can always get the profile ID of any profile by checking this post. You should, however, note that this trick doesn’t work for external links.
Sharing this post on facebook takes less than 5 seconds. It’s gonna help us :).
Update – Dec., 2012:
Facebook blocked this a while ago but there’s another way to do it. The trick above only works if you also include the real name with the update. Here’s what I mean:
@@[0:[PROFILE_ID:1:CUSTOM_TEXT]] @[PROFILE_ID:0]
Which can be written like this:
@@[0:[12345678:1:Report Don to Facebook ]] You can write anything here if you want. @[12345678:0]
The custom anchor text won’t work unless the real name is also included in the post. This definitely works and you can still use a custom text for a profile or page link.
Update – 15th April 2013
According to Shreekant’s comment, this works even better:
@[PROFILE_ID:ツ] @@[0:[PROFILE_ID:1:CUSTOM TEXT]]
