You carry around your driver’s license, passport and other forms of ID as physical representations of your identity. Think of your social media pages as physical representations of your online identity. It may seem like a minute detail, but the way you name your business’ social media platforms makes a difference both in how you appear professionally and the ability of people to find you online. In essence, there is a science to naming your social media pages.
Include the name of your business.
This may seem like a no-brainer, but it needs to be said! Make sure the name of your brand exists in the name of your social pages in some form or fashion. It’s OK if it needs to be abbreviated, but it shouldn’t be so abbreviated that it is not recognizable as the name of your business. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll use Instagram usernames (sometimes called “handles”) in our examples.
Example:
Good: @mcnuttpartners
Bad: @mcp
Here, the second example is too unrecognizable.
Incorporate the city and/or state if your business has a common name.
This is not only a good tip to make it easier for customers to identify a page as yours, but you might not even be able to select your exact business name if it is a common one and is already in use. Adding your city and/or state to the end is a good way to make it more recognizable.
Example:
Good: @cooltreatsauburn or @cooltreatsauburnal
Bad: @cooltreats
The second example could be one among many iterations of businesses called “Cool Treats,” and will make it difficult for customers to find your specific page.
Keep it short and sweet.
This next tip may seem counterintuitive to adding a city/state, but if you go that route (and in general), a shorter social media page name is usually a better one. People don’t remember long names, and more characters presents more opportunity for the name to be misspelled or entered incorrectly.
Example:
Good: @mcnuttpartners
Bad: @mcnuttandpartnersllcauburnalabama
Whew! That second one is Way. Too. Long. Not only are there numerous ways it could be misspelled, but it just doesn’t look that pretty either.
Stay professional.
Again, your brand’s social media pages are a representation of your business. You wouldn’t put unprofessional wording on a billboard, so don’t do it on social either. Slang, poor grammar, profanity, or anything otherwise unrelated to your business should be avoided.
Example:
Good: @mcnuttpartners
Bad: @mcnuttpartners4lyfe
I don’t think we need to elaborate on this one.
Match it as best as possible across social platforms.
When naming your social media pages, try to make the username the same, if possible, across all of the social platforms where you have pages. For example, if you’re @cooltreatsauburn on Instagram, it would be ideal to be @cooltreatsauburn on Facebook and Twitter as well.
Example:
Good: @cooltreatsauburn (on all platforms)
OK: @cooltreatsauburn on Facebook and @cooltreats_auburn on Instagram
Bad: @cooltreatsauburn on Facebook and @icecreamisgood on Instagram
In the third example, there would be no way for people to visually make the connection that both pages are associated with the same brand.
Summary
There is a science to naming your social media pages, but it doesn’t have to be difficult! The ultimate goals are professionalism, consistency and user-friendliness. And as always, if you’d rather us take care of it for you, that’s what we’re here for!
McNutt & Partners is a full-service advertising and digital marketing agency. Contact us today for your marketing needs! Call 334-521-1010, or visit our contact page.
