What’s in a Handle?

That which we call an account by any other name would tweet as influentially. 

Picking your Twitter handle may seem simple, right? The intuitive choice would be your name or your company name. Maybe you’re like me and have a surname in the Top 25 most common in the US, so you’ll resort to throwing a number at the end or jumbling up the order of first and last (suddenly Pilot Inspektor Lee seems to have lucked out somehow). But this obvious path isn’t always the best for companies. It could be that your product is better known than your company name or maybe you market to different verticals and should create more than one account. There are plenty of reasons to think outside the box when it comes to choosing a handle – after all, you should be doing all you can to stand out amongst all the noise.

WarrenSapp vs QBKIlla – If you’re recruiting a defensive tackle for an NFL team, who would seem like more of a quarterback sacking expert? Let’s say, for the sake of this post, that Warren Sapp is an unknown athlete looking to get recruited, if a user doesn’t know Sapp by name but wants someone with his talents, QBKilla is a far more likely handle to come up in a recruiter’s search. And in case recruiters were searching his name, it’s still there in the header above his handle on his profile.

Blackberry vs RIM – This may be a sensitive example to use right now, but it shows how product names can overshadow company names. If a customer wants to search for the latest phone by RIM (Research in Motion), chances are they will search for “Latest Blackberry” not “Latest RIM Phone” (but, like Warren Sapp, you’ll see that RIM still fits its name in the header). Consider adopting a product name as your handle, if it is more recognizable to users.

Adidas vs AdidasFootball vs Adi_Originals (and so on and so on) – After 30 seconds of searching for “Adidas” on Twitter, I found over 10 handles relating to the company’s different market segments. Do you target more than one vertical? Here at Corporate Ink we have three Twitter accounts in order to cater more specifically to our primary spaces (PR, Security, and Supply Chain). Create multiple accounts so you don’t inundate your followers with content that is unrelated to them.

Playtex vs Playtex – Did you know that Playtex the seller of feminine products, and Playtex the seller of feminine apparel, are two completely separate companies? If there is an organization with your company’s name, or one very similar, set yourself apart in Twitter searches by using one of the previous approaches. This will avoid confusing potential followers and, if you choose wisely, can position you as more of an industry expert.

You still can’t judge an account by its handle, but a strategically chosen handle may get a user to at least click through and read.