You will be surprised to learn that despite all the hype about Twitter becoming a key social network for businesses around the world, 55% of the top 125 brands to work for in the Sunday Times did not have their twitter handle secured.
Twitter is one of the most well know social networks out there, and it is no secret the importance of using Twitter as a tool for your company. So, why is it so important for brands to secure their business name handles? Well, an example comes from Samantha Noble at Koozai Digital Marketing, who said she was trying to write to the greeting card company MoonPig, but it turned out that what she assumed to be their handle (@moonpig) was actually just some random person.
She obviously assumed that the company’s twitter handle would be the same as their company name (@moonpig). However, she was surprised to find that it was actually just a random person who had already claimed that handle, and the actual company’s handle was slightly different (@moonpiguk). @Moonpig is owned by a man who claims to have made a mistake several years ago by using his child’s nickname for his twitter handle. He added that he regrets it every Christmas and Valentines. So, if only for the reason of not confusing your customers, it is important to secure your twitter handle before someone else does.
Another baffling fact is that a great majority of these top 125 brands have the ability to yet still have not secured their spot in the twittersphere. Whereas, other companies who have secured their handle don’t link to any social properties at all. It is great if your company is already active on Twitter and has the right account name, but if it is difficult for your customers to find, then it will not be helping your engagement. For this purpose as well as that of SEO purposes, you should have a link from your main website through to your Twitter account to help search engines marry your business up with your social network. 45% of these top 125 brands did not have a link to their Twitter account from their website.
Samantha Noble, Marketing Director at Koozai Marketing looked at all the brands to pull data to highlight her concerns. You can take a look at her Google Document here to view the raw data, but here are some of the highlights of her findings.
Of the 125 brands, 11% did not have a presence on Twitter. Then, looking at those brands, she sought to find a sector in the market that would be less likely to have a presence. It turned out that the Professional sector, followed by retail, hospitality, and financial made up the majority of sectors not on Twitter.
Of the brands who did have an active presence on Twitter, 55% of them did not secure their actual brand name as a twitter handle. She dug even further to see if those who did not secure their actual brand name would be able to, and a shocking 27% were not even registered yet. Another 27% of the brand names were registered by another party but were not actually being used. So, there would be a possibility of getting it transferred over. The Trademark Policy on Twitter helps explain the different situations and how to handle each.
If you do not have a Twitter account, act fast and secure your handle. Even if you don’t plan on using it right away, your company may grow and the need for it may come to fruition in the future. If you do already have a Twitter account, make sure your name is easy for your customers to find and make sure to link to it from your main webpage.
Information was derived from Koozai Intelligent Digital Marketing