Reserve Your Twitter ID Gracefully
June 3rd, 2009 by Frank Piacitelli
There’s a lot of talk about Twitter. We give and get a lot of advice about it. But there are two good guidelines out there that are somewhat in conflict. The first is not to create a Twitter profile and just let it sit there dormant. The second is to grab your ideal Twitter account name while it’s still available – there is something of a “gold rush” to reserve Twitter IDs happening, much like the gold rush for dot com domain names some years ago in the first-wave internet boom.
We always advise strategy before any tactics, but how can you reserve your ideal Twitter ID gracefully if you’re not ready to get going with Twitter? Simply, we would advise you to go ahead and reserve your Twitter ID, but make sure you (1) post an initial tweet that indicates that you are not actively tweeting yet, and (2) define and enforce upon yourself a timeline to define a simple tweeting strategy (What will you tweet about? How often? Should you follow anyone? Who?) and put it into action as soon as you can.
- Frank Piacitelli
This entry was posted by Frank Piacitelli on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 and is filed under MF, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Great advice, Frank – May I also suggest that in addition to the initial tweet, that users be sure to complete their bio, location, Web site link, and upload their photo/logo to establish their credibility and commitment? Leaving those elements out is like inviting guests into an empty apartment.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Dan – excellent points, well said. I could not agree more.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Frank, another alternative is to create an account with the Twitter ID you prefer, and then delete it. Twitter retains the ID and the account information, and you can go back and re-start the account at any time. If using this tactic, I think your second point is still critical. Create a timeline and strategy, and implement it!