You’ve got a Twitter account and a Facebook page for your business, but what about the hundreds of other social media sites which let you choose your username?
Just as it’s important to stake a claim on your company’s name with a domain name, it’s also important to claim it as a username on social networking and bookmarking sites, if only to keep others from hijacking your brand.
One method for claiming these profiles is to go to each social site in turn, checking the availability of your username and registering for it, but that could be a potentially time-intensive endeavor.
A better way would be to use one of the free social networking profile availability checkers and do it all at one fell swoop. Here’s a couple of free tools to help you save time and money while claiming your company’s usernames:
3 Sites for Checking Social Media Username Availability
1. namechk: Covering 72 major social networking sites, namechk is simple, fast, and easy to use. If your desired username or vanity URL is still available, you simply click through each one to claim it. If your brand isn’t consistent across the web, namechk can help you by determining which usernames are still available on a number of the most popular sites.
2. KnowEm: KnowEm has the highest number of sites available for checking username availability – 340 at last count. Again, simply by entering your desired username, you’ll be able to find out instantly if it’s still available. For those with more money than time, KnowEm also offers paid plans, from just signing up and registering you at 150 sites, to the full featured plan which also fills in all profile details, complete with pictures, at 100 to 300 different networking sites.
3. UserNameCheck: A very plain site, UserNameCheck is still a great choice. It covers 68 of the most popular social networking sites, and the results of the search are quick and accurate.
You may want to also check out all of your company’s product names on these services if you plan to use social marketing, and if you’ve got some great ideas for new products or websites, it’s better to reserve the name now instead of waiting until you’re ready to launch.
Are there any other good username availability tools that you like to use?
[Derek Markham is a writer, a father, a WordPress addict, and social media butterfly who loves to share what's new and interesting in his world in under 140 characters. Hit him up with an @ reply anytime for help, advice, or just to say hey!]
Image: © MissMedia – Fotolia.com
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[...] 3 Sites to Easily Claim Your Company’s Social Networking Usernames introduces three resources that search hundreds of sites that search for your brand. I did a quick scan for Mymompreneur and found that out of of the 72 social networks checked by NameChk’s, I only had 7 covered. Thankfully they are all profiles created by me but I still have some work to do! The picture was even more grim when I checked the 340 networks searched by KnowEm. [...]
Real nice work all the bests to the blog owners, I have learned a lot hope others will enjoy as well.