HOW TO PICK THE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT NAME

How to Pick the Right Social Media Account Names  Are you promoting your business onsocial media? You should be. With 74% of Americans utilizing social media, companies that don’t take the time to create and optimize their social profiles may be missing out on a number of business opportunities.  An important step in optimizing your social profiles is often the first: picking your profile name. While choosing a moniker may seem simple enough, there are a number of factors businesses must consider when picking a name.  The best usernames are original, memorable and reflect the way customers view your brand; they’re alsoSEO-friendly, meaning a good name will help boost your rankings on search engines.  Perhaps one of the most important aspects of selecting a profile name is consistency. Choosing a name that works across all platforms will allow your customers to easily find your business on all networks, allowing you to leverage your social presence to the fullest.  Let’s take a look at some best practices when choosing social media account names.  Facebook  Facebook’s large user base offers great opportunities for promoting any type of product or service. However, the success of your Facebook campaign depends in large part on your ability to choose the right username.  In most cases, businesses should use their company name as their profile name. This will allow your customers to easily find and “like” your page. Additionally, using your company name lends authenticity to your account.  It might seem like a good idea to load your username with keywords in hopes of boosting your SEO. This, however, can hinder your account’s performance, as many users view keyword-stuffing as spam, and few are willing to share or “like” spam.   Once you create your business profile page, you might notice that its URL is a little long and unmemorable, like the one from this dead Facebook example:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Equine-Calculator/857469375913?ref=ts This is where vanity URLs come in.  Once your page receives 25 likes, you can claim your vanity URL, which replaces the long URL with a shorter, easily memorable one:  http://www.facebook.com/EquineCalculator Claiming a vanity URL is a great opportunity to boost your SEO efforts. You could also include a relevant keyword in your vanity URL to help customers better identify your brand and its offerings. For example, a restaurant may want to use its vanity URL to reflect the type of food it serves or its location, such as “JoesPizza” or “JohnsSantaMonica.”  Just make sure that any keywords you include provide an accurate representation of your business. And be sure to choose a vanity URL you will be happy with in the long term; once you get a vanity URL, businesses can’t change their usernames.  Twitter  Like Facebook page titles, Twitteraccount names should offer a memorable and accurate description of your business.  Twitter’s famous tweet limit is 140 characters, but the service also limits the length of its usernames to only 15 characters. Additionally, when a follower tweets you or replies to your tweet, your business name is included in the character count, limiting the space available for the message. Businesses should avoid choosing overly long usernames to make the most of this valuable real estate.  Additionally, as with any service, businesses should consider how their usernames will be regarded in more formal settings. While playful or risqué usernames may seem fine for a Twitter audience, companies should assess how potential usernames will look on aresume or business card.  When in doubt, opt for a name that accurately reflects your business without raising eyebrows.  Instagram While Instagram is an incredibly effective tool for image-heavy marketing, the success of an Instagram campaigndepends on your ability to connect with potential followers. To ensure interested parties can locate you, it’s a good idea to choose a username that reflects both your business and its offerings. Additionally, usernames should be short, pronounceable and easy to find in a search. If your company name is overly generic, you may want to consider adding a keyword, such as the name of one of your offerings or your location, to make your product or service clearer to potential followers.  Ideally, a company will use the same name for their Instagram account as their other social media pages. Many of Instagram’s 150 million monthly usersalso post images to Facebook and Twitter, so it’s important that your name is easily recognizable across all three media. This will allow you to capitalize on your business’ success in one social platform to build an audience in another.  Pinterest  Another photo-based social platform,Pinterest offers tremendous benefits to business owners.  Along with showcasing a “digital scrapbook” of your products, Pinterest allows companies to see what goods and services are of interest to potential customers based on products they “pin” to their Pinterest boards. However, like with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the quality of your username affects your ability to find customers and perform market research on your base.  Like Twitter, Pinterest limits usernames to only 15 characters.  Small Details Make a Big Difference  From maximizing brand awareness, to helping you find new potential clients, social media has a huge effect on the way companies conduct business. By choosing a short, recognizable and memorable moniker that can work across multiple social media platforms, you can boost your brand’s marketing strategy with a pervasive presence across the web.