Here’s Why You Should Secure Your Username Across All Social Platforms

You more than likely know the age-old saying “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.” Believe it not, the saying also somewhat applies to social media platforms!

Our team often receives questions from clients around whether or not they should secure their @ handle on platforms that they are not currently using. The short answer to this is a loud “YES!”

Here’s why: Imagine that a member of our team is keynoting an event and someone asks us where they can connect with us on social media. We reply @thecontentplug on Instagram, @thecontentplug_1 on Twitter, and @thecontentplug_2 on Facebook. The audience member is then highly confused and will more than likely have trouble connecting with us on multiple platforms because they may not remember what our handles are.

This is especially true if your company name is similar to another brand. We cannot tell you how often we see people engaging with the wrong person or brand because of similar social media names.

We bet TikTok wishes they had this Twitter handle instead of @tiktok_us!

Having the same handle across the board makes it easy for your audience to find and engage with you. It also prevents others from taking it, misrepresenting your brand, or squatting on it for you to pay them for access later.

But what if someone else is using my trademark?

If someone else is using your brand’s trademarked name in a social media handle, you may be able to get it back, but it will not be a piece of cake. Take a look at the rules that Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have around this instance and submit a ticket in order to begin the process.

But won’t it look bad if we are not using the platform?

Some social media professionals would say yes, but in our opinion, it is better to have your brand name locked down on a private account now than having to spend quality hours trying to get it back from someone else later.

Additionally, adding a tagline or description saying that you are more active on other platforms will ensure that your target audience does not think you abandoned them.

Our final advice: Before creating or launching a business, take a moment to sit down and write out all of the names and phrases that could potentially work for it. Try different combinations and then see which ones are available for a .com (.co, .net, etc. are fine, but .com is obviously the king of them all) and across all platforms, even those that you think you will not have a presence on. You can also use a tool like CheckUsernames.com to make this easier.

You may think that a platform is out of your league now, but you may be surprised what 2022 and beyond brings!

A list of platforms to consider grabbing your handle on include: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Clubhouse, Slack, Shopify, WhatsApp, CashApp, Venmo, Snapchat, and Reddit. Now get to it!