What's in a name? While Shakespeare's Juliet tried to profess the inconsequentiality of names, many modern day business owners would argue that branding is perhaps the most valuable part of their company. Securing and protecting that brand is a big part of what makes a company re-sellable. Yet, many businesses
are losing control of their "virtual branding", as opportunistic individuals or competitors snap up their brand's name on social media platforms.
To date, company owners have always been focused on securing the best website domain name for a new company (feeling satisfied that their digital branding is done, once this is complete), but with the invention and mass adoption of social media a new virtual "gold rush" has begun. The race is on to secure the best Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube usernames and it's the fast and the savvy that are getting the best.
When you (or your company) set up an account on a social networking site, such as Facebook or Twitter, you can select a username to represent your account. In Xplore.net's case, our username on both Facebook and Twitter is "xploreNET" - meaning, you can use the following addresses to easily access our accounts: www.twitter.com/xploreNET or www.facebook.com/xploreNET. However, we missed out on the "xploreNET" username on YouTube (someone else beat us to it), so our YouTube username is "xploreNETwebsites". As you can see from this example, using your brand name as your username on all social media platforms (without a variation, like the one we had to use on YouTube) is the best way to ensure your clients find your brand on these sites, and not someone else's.
However, even the big players are victims of inaction (or, at least, a sluggish pace). One of the world's biggest brands was among those who missed out on securing their brand's username on the popular social networking site, Facebook. If you visit www.facebook.com/cocacola the page that you find is not run by Coca-Cola. Instead, the Facebook username "cocacola" (arguably the most valuable username on Facebook) was secured by an opportunistic out-of-work actor and his writer friend.
Fortunately for Coca-Cola, the Facebook username owners were quick to identify that they stood to gain more from working with Coca-Cola, than by using the page to attack their brand. Coca-Cola weren't without their allurement either - they flew the two page administrators to Atlanta for a tour of their facilities and education about the business. This naturally spawned a series of YouTube videos that cleverly painted Coca-Cola as embracing consumer controlled advertising and reinforced Coca-Cola's slogan, "You Can't Beat the Feeling" (…of a free trip to Atlanta).
Whilst this is a good example of how to manage a potentially brand damaging situation, life would also have been easier for Coca-Cola, had they secured the username for themselves.
So, when considering whether your company should bother investing time in social media, keep in mind that the decisions you make now negatively impact your future marketing. At the very least, we suggest that every company should try to secure their company username on key social media platforms - even if they don't intend to use these platforms, just yet.
Wendy Schollum is a web strategist and managing director of Xplore - your web agency (www.xplore.net). For more information on digital marketing, follow Xplore on Twitter (www.twitter.com/xploreNET), join Xplore on Facebook (www.facebook.com/xploreNET), add Xplore to one of your Google+ circles (http://gplus.to/xploreNET) or call 0800 100 900.