What’s in a Twitter name?
3rd February 2011When deciding to take your first steps into the world of Twitter, one of the initial decisions you’ll have to make is what you call yourself. What you put after that @ is all important these days…
Your handle represents your person or brand to the Twitter world, so it’s an important factor when first launching yourself onto Twitter.
Here are a few tips to help you pick wisely.
1) Unfortunately, if you’re only now signing up for Twitter there’s a chance your exact name has been taken. If this is the case, conjunctions and underscores are perfectly acceptable, although avoid simply adding numbers (e.g. @big_trucks)
2) Instead of using your company name, why not select a phrase related to your product or service offering? Although branding is reduced, twitter users will find the ‘say what you do on the tin’ approach an easy measure to decided if they will follow you. (e.g. @moveyourstuff)
3) The Twitter community is much more likely to engage with you if there is a face and personality behind the avatar so they know who they are conversing with. It might be appropriate to include the name of the tweeter in the company’s handle (e.g @BigTrucksJBlogs)
4) Keep it short. Even though most third party apps have predictive @s, a longer name is harder to remember and takes away from valuable tweeting characters.
5) If setting up multiple accounts for a brand, be clear and include what that specific feed is for in the handle e.g. sales, customer services, deals etc (e.g. @Big_trucksHelp).
6) Pick a handle that can be used across a variety of platforms e.g. your vanity url on Facebook (e.g. www.facebook.com/big_trucks), profile on Slideshare etc – consistency will make your social media presence easier to discover.
