Question

Topic: Social Media

Need Help Abbreviating Company Name For Twitter

Posted by Anonymous on 11/24/2009 at 11:54 AM ET 500 Points
Ran into an issue this morning trying to create a Twitter account for our business. Name of business is Supreme School Supply, which is 21 characters with spaces. Twitter only allows 20 characters in the Full Name field, and 15 for username.

Should we use SupremeSchoolSupply without spaces for the Full Name to represent the company? Another options is Supreme School Sup, with our without a (.) at the end, but I would probably leave it off for search matches. I am open to other suggestions / abbreviations.

I want to balance recognition vs. future issues on searching for our company.

Need input ASAP on this one.

Steve
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 11/24/2009 at 12:00 PM Accepted
    I would just make sure that the two key words are searchable for the future...those are school and supply...they are what users will likely type in when they are searching. As for supreme...variations abound.

    sup school supply
    super school supply
    suprm school supply
    primo school supply
    spreme school supply

    hope that helps a little...always be focused on the intent of the searcher...they are abviously looking for school supplies...

    Jeremy
  • Posted on 11/24/2009 at 12:02 PM Moderator
    Steve,

    If "SupremeSchoolSupply" works, I would nab it while you can.

    Brand squatters are everywhere and if they think they can 'own' your brand (just like they do by buying URLs), they will.

    Now that said, Twitter has rules against brand squatting, but if the brand squatter cancels the account Twitter holds it for 6 months.

    Why do I know this? Because I had "BethHart" (without the "E") as a Twitter account directing people to "BethHarte" because people kept spelling my last name wrong.

    However, there is a singer by the name of Beth Hart and after about a year or so, she wanted a Twitter account. I thought just by canceling it, it would free it up for her...but no. Being nice, unlike brand squatters, I reactivated the account and did the backend work to switch the emails so that Beth Hart could access the account and start using it ASAP.

    As well, if you use SupremeSchoolSupply and then Supreme School Supply in the description, you'll still get the SEO. There are a ton of services out that there pick up tweets. Be sure to set up Google Alerts so you can monitor, track and measure your Twitter progress.

    I hope this helps!
    Beth Harte
    Community Manager, MarketingProfs
    @bethharte

  • Posted on 11/24/2009 at 12:07 PM Accepted
    I agree with Beth, go ahead and nab SupremeSchoolSupply. Most people, and many companies, create a Twitter name with no spaces. Beth is @BethHarte and I am @MackCollier for example. In fact if I wanted to find a company on Twitter, I would probably look for their name with no spaces first.
  • Posted on 11/24/2009 at 12:09 PM Accepted
    Steve, one more thought after seeing Jeremy's response...

    I might be wrong, but I don't think you'd want search to lead folks to Twitter. But, it really depends on your goal/measurable objectives for using Twitter.

    I'd think you'd want to use Twitter to lead folks to your website, content, products, etc. As well as a mechanism for customer service.

    Even if people search on "school" and "supply" they can't engage with you on Twitter unless they have a Twitter account.

    Now that said, if you use "school" and "supply" in your tweets, people will find your Twitter account via natural search, but where will they go from there and what action do you want them to take? That's what you need to think about for the future...

    Beth

  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 11/24/2009 at 12:30 PM Accepted
    Dear Steve,

    If your business name and overall brand is already anchored with clients, which I know is the case because we've exchanged ideas and thoughts on your main site in the last few months, stick with SupremeSchoolSupply.

    Anything else is going to dilute or muddy your company name and cause confusion in the minds of people that are already familiar with your name.

    And if your company is the SAME Supreme School Supply based in Arcadia, WI, you've already anchored your domain name to the thing you do: supplying schools. So, the thing to consider now is integrating your domain name WITH your Twitter name and with any other social media platform you may wind up using

    This means if you haven't as yet bagged:

    www.facebook.com/SupremeSchoolSupply

    ... that's something else you'd do well to consider doing.

    Likewise with anything to do with YouTube. Secure your own channel now, and consider adding sister domain names for your main domain, by which I mean buying up:

    supremeschoolsupply.me
    supremeschoolsupply.net
    supremeschoolsupply.org
    supremeschoolsupply.us
    supremeschoolsupply.mobi
    supremeschoolsupply.cm
    supremeschoolsupply.biz
    supremeschoolsupply.info
    supremeschoolsupply.tv
    supremeschoolsupply.co.uk
    supremeschoolsupply.org.uk
    supremeschoolsupply.me.uk

    ... all of which are available through www.namecheap.com?aff=4710, and all of which could be set up to redirect to your main site.

    The key here is one cohesive, integrated whole. Add video and a regularly updated blog and you'll be miles ahead of your competitors.

    I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA
    Follow me on www.twitter.com @GaryBloomer


  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 11/24/2009 at 12:37 PM Member
    Dear Steve,

    P.S. You might want to review this list (from those nice people at tweepsearch.com), which, in combination with Twitter's overall search function, ought to give you a good list of people to look at and thank about following:

    https://tweepsearch.com/search?query=school+supply&commit=Do+Your+Thing%21

    Again, I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA
    Follow me on www.twitter.com @GaryBloomer
  • Posted by Levon on 11/24/2009 at 1:01 PM Accepted
    A more generic "school supplies" should help with SEO.
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 11/24/2009 at 1:45 PM Accepted
    SupremeSchoolSupply works fine for humans to understand the name of your company. As others have mentioned, you don't want to drive people to Twitter - just make the connection from Twitter to your existing brand.
  • Posted by michael on 11/24/2009 at 3:33 PM Accepted
    Steve,

    Definitely go with the full name.

    As always, the quality of the tweets is the key

    Michael
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 11/25/2009 at 8:41 AM Member
    Full disclosure: I am a compensated affiliate of www.namecheap.com

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA
  • Posted by Louise on 11/30/2009 at 2:06 PM Member
    Be aware that a longer name will give less space for others to retweet your tweets, something to think about.
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