Social Media Magicians

If you want to create a personal brand with you at the center, you will have to decide what to call yourself.  It’s the first step in creating your YouTube channel, Twitter Profile, Facebook page, or any other social media profile.  You could take a shortcut and pick your real name, or you can pick an alias.  If you pick your real name, great! But if you don’t want to associate your real name with your online personality (at least yet), I’ll guide you in this post.

Be as general as possible

When thinking of an online alias, you want to be as general as possible.  Imagine you name yourself “VideoGameGuru”.  You will now be confined to producing content about video games, when later down the line you may decide you want to change gears.  If you are as general as possible in your brand name, then you can make it whatever you want, and will not be confined to any specific genre or format.  I think it is absolutely critical to have as a generic name as possible, because you never know what you will want to be doing down the road, and you can maintain your online brand even if you completely shift gears.

Use your name in your alias

If your brand will be all about you, and not a company or group of people, I believe you should put your first name in your alias.  The reason for this is that people are going to call you whatever your username/alias/brand is, and what would you rather be called, “SniperKing5” or “Chris”?  I think the answer is obvious.  Just look at some of the top YouTubers and their usernames: FreddieW, DaveDays, JennaMarbles, RayWilliamJohnson, and so on.  All of these people are referred to by their real first names, and it makes the relationship between your audience and yourself so much more authentic.  They’re not talking to “SniperKing”, they’re talking to you, Chris/Jen/Bill!  The only exception to this rule is if there are multiple people involved; not just yourself.  For example, if you make your alias and username “JoeAndBob,” what happens if Bob decides to quit?  However, if you make a name for your group, the brand can live on no matter what members leave and join.

Be unique

This should be a no-brainer, but I want to mention it anyway.  Your username should be absolutely unique, as well as simple enough for someone to remember easily.  If someone searches your alias, you and everything you’ve done should be the first results.  If your username is “ChrisIsCool”, and someone searches “Chris is Cool”, they probably won’t see you first.  But take me as an example, if someone searches “Thio Joe”, that combination is extremely unique, so my pages are always first.  So be simple and unique.