So, you’ve been thinking about jumping on the twitter band wagon for a while now and the recent Ashton Kutcher / CNN / Oprah hype has finally pushed you to pull the trigger. If all that hype proved one thing, it’s that twitter is officially mainstream. What’s that mean to you? If you’re a business it means a lot. It means that a lot of people who didn’t know what twitter was… well… they do now. More people on twitter means more opportunities to make connections. To do that, they need to know who you are, so choose your name wisely.
It’s been debated before, but there is no right or wrong way to choose your twitter name. Picking your twitter name is a situational circumstance. Chris Brogan covered this topic briefly in his post “The Undiscovered County of Presence Management.” Let’s say a guy named Steve Jobs wants to get on twitter and talk about apple computers. Yes, his name should be @stevejobs (which is dormant by the way) because everyone knows who he is.
How about my friend Cheryl Stone? You know her? Didn’t think so (no offense Cheryl). Cheryl is the manager at a New Balance store in Huntsville, Alabama. She would like to connect with runners in our area, particularly those who wear New Balance shoes or support the brand. Her name on twitter is @nbhuntsville. Sure @nbhuntsville is still a tad vague, but it’s better than Joe Smith. How would we know who he worked for? However, I would always recommend your real name on the bio.
Take a bigger company like @jasonsdeli for example. Even their bio page says their name is jasonsdeli. Who cares? Do you? I most certainly don’t. I won a gift card from them on twitter! Do I need to know that John Doe is the guy tweeting for them? Not really… it doesn’t matter. I do know his actual name and he does a great job, but the point is, in the case of @jasonsdeli their brand name is much more recognizable than any one person associated with them. You’ll recognize them without even looking at their profile.
The same thing goes for avatars. If your name is recognizable enough, use a picture of yourself. However, in some cases a logo may be needed for ease of recognition such as @nbhuntsville. This clearly defines just who you are. Basically when it comes to a business on twitter, sometimes you’re a representative of that business and other times the business is personified on twitter.
Give it some thought and you’ll figure out which route you should go. If you’ve already decided, which way did you go?
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