Miles Austin

The Web Tools Guy / Speaker and Sales and Marketing Technologist
Redmond, Washington

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Claim Your Name!

Your name is valuable and if you don't claim it someone else will benefit from your success. Twitter, LinkedIn and others are experiencing explosive growth. Control your name now.

Written Apr 27, 2009, read 4778 times since then.

I recommend that you claim your name from as many of the Web Tools, Online Services and Social Media sites as you can. Consider claiming both your personal name and your company name if appropriate. Twitter would be an example of a Web Tool that you should create an account with your name and also your company name.

Don’t wait on this, add it to your to-do list now. Claim your Name on every social media and web tool service you can think of. In my last two corporate training workshops, “Web Tools for Business” and “LinkedIn Professional Profiles” this topic has come up consistently... your name has already been taken. Even if you do not anticipate using these specific tools, claim your name anyway. When you learn of a new Web Tool, go claim your space early. I went so far as to purchase .com domain names of my children's names many years ago. At least they will have the control of their name in the future.

Using LinkedIn as the example, one of the first actions I recommend and one with immediate and practical benefit is to customize the URL for your profile. Changing the default URL from http://www.linkedin.com/pub/7/234/3×7 to http://www.linkedIn/in/milesaustin will yield an address that is easy to understand, remember and provides the enhancement of additional search benefits and branding of your name.

Here is how you claim your name on LinkedIn:

Browse to your Profile on LinkedIn
Select Edit Your Profile
Locate Public Profile in the top portion of your Profile
To the right of the existing (lengthy) URL, click edit
Select Edit at the top of the page at the Your Public Profile URL line
Enter your name as you have decided to use it for this purpose and select Set Address.
If your name is already in use, consider another variation of your name and continue until you find one that works
If you are unable to find an available version of your name that works, consider using your company name in it’s place.
While you are on this page you might as well review your options for the display of other portions of your Profile. I recommend that you make as much as you can visible with the exceptions of the Show Details option for your Past Positions unless you are engaged in a job search.
After you have completed this step, good practice is to include your new personalized Profile URL in your email signature, on your business cards. and any information being viewed by the public.

Here is a list of the sites that should be high on your list:

.Com domain name
LinkedIn
Twitter
FaceBook
WordPress.com
Gmail
Yahoo
YouTube
Flicker
Google Profile

I am sure you can think of many more that should be claimed. Add your recommendations on additional sites and services in the comment section for the rest of us to benefit from. With your helpful comments and suggestions, we should be able to compile a handy one page checklist for all of us to use. I will post the consolidated list of sites as a follow –up to this article a month from now. I have heard from some of you on the phone which is great, but the rest of the Biznik community does not benefit from your insight. Share your recommendations by commenting below and help your fellow Biznik members claim their name.

Learn more about the author, Miles Austin.

Posted by Shannon Evans, Bainbridge Island, Washington | Apr 29, 2009

Good article. It is easier to control your brand's web presence from the start then to try and fix any damage done by others after the fact.
Posted by Tami Smith, Kirkland, Washington | Apr 29, 2009

Great article Miles. With sites like Facebook gaining in importance and reach, this is timely information.

Another way to think about it is to have an account in at least one of every major category of service (which most of been addressed in this article), such as Twitter for microblogging, YouTube for video sharing, Delicious for links, Last.fm for music, Flickr for images, Digg for news and Facebook for a profile.

It can seem overwhelming to maintain so many profiles, but using a lifestreaming tool such as FriendFeed will make it more efficient.

Do you recommend linking all your accounts to your blog and personal site and using the blog RSS feeds?
Posted by Kathy Johnson, Seattle, Washington | Apr 30, 2009

Terrific ideas -- even more so for those of us with very common names!

Kathy Johnson www.colorswithconfidence.com
Posted by Russ Alman, Olympia, Washington | Apr 30, 2009

Yes, I agree. Nail these down while you have the chance. My domain is www.altmktg.com, so I went through all the services and grabbed "altmktg," even on the ones I'm not using yet.

Another trick I've been using (although this may be for the more technically inclined). I've created redirects on my domain for each of the Web 2.0 sites. For example, www.altmktg.com/twitter forwards to my Twitter page and www.altmktg.com/facebook redirects to my Facebook page. That way, if I want to give someone the URL for one of the social media sites, I don't have to remember them. You could also accomplish this with subdomains (i.e., facebook.yourdomain.com).
Posted by Chanchal Kumar, New Delhi, New Delhi India | Apr 30, 2009

Nice Piece of Reading.. Claiming yourself ASAP matters a lot from any dimension you got to think of

The Way Twitter has drawn the web2.0 concept is a example to take from and what a web presence and the name you select matters is nothing to be given a second thought all about.

I work at iYogi Technical Support Services and after going through your article is going to suggest and cross check with the marketing ppls are the done with getting there details listed and occupied on some of the major sites you just mentioned
Posted by John Nickens, PhD, Oakland, California | Apr 30, 2009

This is a terrific reminder! Just a few days ago I suggested to a new marketer that she begin establishing her "brand" and along comes your post to remind me that I have some work to do in that area myself! Many psychotherapists are not oriented to self-promotion, so learning about marketing strategies is both new and necessary. Thanks.

www.johnnickensphd.com
Posted by Elizabeth Andreini, Seattle, Washington | Apr 30, 2009

I couldn't agree more and am claiming both my personal name as well as my business name - most recently on Twitter. The key is thinking in terms of your Online Brand both personally and professional. You want to create a presence and block others. For me personally I want people to find me as Elizabeth Andreini and my business not the woman in Naples Florida who is a massage therapist. Just remember to maintain a list and a master description so it is easier for you to track.
Posted by Miles Austin, Redmond, Washington | Apr 30, 2009

Thanks to all for the comments so far.

Tami, good suggestion on FriendFeed. It is something for readers to consider as they get more connected. As far as linking all the accounts to the blog, I find each business and person is different. What you suggest is a good strategy and very effective for some.

John P., John N. and Elizabeth all touchedon the reminder that many of us are helping others claim and strengthen their online presence but forget to do it for ourselves and our companies.
Posted by Craig Rippon, Brisbane, Queensland Australia | Apr 30, 2009

Check popular social networking sites with: http://usernamecheck.com
Posted by Miles Austin, Redmond, Washington | Apr 30, 2009

Craig, Thanks for the suggestion. The site that Craig references has actually been updated and refreshed and is now known as http://knowem.com. They feature 120 sites and even offer a service for a fee of $64.95 that will sign you up with your name on all 120.

CAUTION: Not all sites are listed, including some of the majors like LinkedIn and Facebook. I am not sure I want an account on all the sites that they have listed, but if you enter your desired name, it will show you which sites are taken and which are available for you to choose from for free.

If you Twitter, follow them at @knowem and at least keep up to date on what they are doing.

Please continue to share the sites that you feel are the "Must Have's" and I will publish that list in the weeks ahead.
Posted by Mark McLaren, Seattle, Washington | May 01, 2009

Miles, Great article and a welcome reminder. Every business - and probably every person - should take the time required to register on major social media sites and reserve an appropriate domain name, if possible. Buying the .com domains for your kids is not a bad idea either!

Speaking of registering domain names, what site do you recommend using to see if names are taken or not? I recall not long ago that there was a flap about a registrar (or someone that worked for a registrar) that was apparently snagging names that were being checked on their site if they thought they seemed valuable.
Posted by Gil Pauley, Bellevue, Washington | May 01, 2009

Miles,

Interesting article! I have claimed some names on Twitter. However, if you are interested in claiming several variants of your business name or several keywords for your business, then Twitter requires a separate email address for each one. I can understand a separate password, but separate emails is a pain. I don't know about the other Social Media sites, but I suppose you could use the new emails over and over for the different sites. I did our business name and a couple of common search terms.

Gil Pauley

www.brooksidedental.com www.brooksidedental.com/blog
Posted by John Davies, San Dimas, California | May 02, 2009

This is a great article. I actually went and made a change to my LinkedIn account. Thanks!

http://www.jd-web-designs.com
Posted by Miles Austin, Redmond, Washington | May 02, 2009

Mark, I have never experienced any problems after checking for domain name availability when using GoDaddy or Register.com. I actually own my own domain registration site tied to one of the big guys that I find useful when I am helping clients set up their domain names and strategy. Many clients do not want to be bothered with the sometimes confusing management of DNS, Redirects, email setup and the like, so I manage it all for them for just a few dollars per year per domain.
Posted by Miles Austin, Redmond, Washington | Jun 13, 2009

UPDATE: As of midnight on June 12, 2009 you are now able to claim your name, nickname or company name on Facebook. This is identical to the LinkedIn method so my new Facebook address is www.facebook.com/milesaustin

Pretty cool but go grab your name quickly or someone else will.

Take that Miles Austin/Cowboys Wide Receiver!