What do you use when creating accounts at social networks, video sharing sites, forums and the like? If you’re using a nickname from your school days you may be missing out on the opportunity to further spread your brand name.
Why? Because on some networks, usernames are what people use to look you up. Usernames are also sometimes used in the URL of your profile’s pages. Also, on average many of us belong to more than one social network. The more consistent we are on all these sites, the more often we get our name in front of our audience.
For many of us, the logical username would be our real names. As small business owners, our brand, is often closely intertwined with us. But what if the username is taken? Then get creative, by choose something that can further enhance your brand. For example, I’ve had a few people nickname me their “Tech Diva”. I personally do not like “diva” so I use “TechLady” for my Twitter account.
Another marketer whom I follow – Anita Campbell is owner of SmallBizTrends and she uses “smallbiztrends” as her Twitter username.
The bottom line is, they all reinforce the tie between us and our brands or what our business stands for, and yet, don’t look like spam. Regardless of the social network we participate in, people know when they see me, my name or my username it’ll always be related to technology in one way or another.
Some great points here Lynette. My twitter account is “veraraposo” I gather I could always create a “SBB” twitter account for SBB specific posts but I’m not sure if I want to go that far.
Great, simple tip – often missed in the hustle and bustle of social media 🙂
Maria Reyes-McDavis
Hey there Lynette, I lean towards using your name but realize some have common names and can’t always grab theirs.
Your ‘techlady’ and Anita’s ‘smallbiztrends’ make perfect sense and since you are both mature marketers who KNOW they have pegged their brand it’s a good move.
My concern comes in for those who aren’t sure yet. It would be a real mistake to brand yourself by a domain name or project name that you end up dropping down the road. Unless I am rock solid dead sure that I’ll be calling myself the same thing for years to come – I’ll stick with my name whenever possible.
Hey Kelly, I think the best option is always to try for your name first. And you are right, a newer business may not have that footing… Yet, I can’t help wondering. Maybe this is also a lesson in focus. If you are not focused and you don’t know where you or your business is heading or stands for it will be easy to end up with projects in completely different markets that make branding yourself to one market difficult.
I think the key here is, you should brand your business, not your projects. Don’t you think?
On the other hand, I’m not sure we should quit promoting our brand just because we may some day ditch it because we never really know what we will do in the future. I know for now, I cannot think of doing anything else for the rest of my life. But you never know. Besides, I think if you do exit the business and have a strong brand, your business should be more appealing to the buyer.