Is getting that perfect username really that important?
‘There’s no such thing as perfect’ is such an overused phrase. It’s something that we all talk about but even then, perfection is something we all strive for.
And as a digital marketing company, we own a number of social media handles and do a lot of posts on every handle. And behind every handle, we put in hours of thought and research to make sure we’re making all the right choices. Rightly so, as a small business or a startup, you need to build that brand and you have to do it PERFECTLY. Right? No, you are wrong.
Let’s take our name. We go by the name studio4.online. That’s our website’s name, that’s how we want to show up in search results and that’s what we want for our social media handles too. But the world isn’t perfect like that, neither is it ideal.
On twitter — we’re studio4_online, on Facebook we’re online.studio4 and well, for Instagram we got it right — studio4.online. And the evening we were setting up our Facebook page, we tried all possible combinations to make sure our handle’s name matches our actual company name.
Studio.4online….studi.o4online….studio4onlinee….studi_o4online…. We spent a good half an hour on this before realizing — it doesn’t matter!
Your social media handles are just your username. They’re just the medium for conveying what you want to about your brand and its products. And we know what you’re thinking — “But won’t that confuse the customers? How will they find us with all these different names?”
This is where it’s important to realize — social media handles are JUST your username. People do not search for usernames/handles, they search for BRAND NAMES.
With usernames, it’s difficult to find the exact match. And no customer is going to go into a search bar and type @studi.o4online. They’re going to type — Studio4 or maybe Studio4 online.
Now, the top results that show up are going to be in terms of BRAND NAMES of the accounts rather than the usernames. And the good news is, brand names are easy to get and you can ALWAYS name your social media profile the exact brand name you want to.
But these are just words and if you don’t want to take our word for it, here’s some data to back our claims.
We all LOVE Netflix, right? Well, on twitter — Netflix’s username for India is — @NetflixIndia. BUT on Instagram, the username is @Netflix_In. Does this mean when you type in Netflix India and search for their account, it just won’t show up? NO. They’re still the top result because their name is consistent throughout all platforms. And let’s be honest, no one really misses a post on Netflix’s social media accounts just because their username is different.
Let’s scale it down a little and talk about startups. Most startups do not have the exact match for their social media handles across all platforms. In fact, 80% of companies have different usernames.
What matters more is the NAME of your company. As long as your brand name is catchy, resonates with the audience, and is identical across all platforms, you don’t have to waste any more time worrying about exactly matching your usernames.
This does NOT impact your growth or customer engagement. So, stop stressing about those usernames. Focus on your brand story, focus on the name of your brand, and most importantly — the content.
