Before setting up your social media accounts, let us offer a quick word about your choice of profile names. All of the social media tools/services listed below and intended to be 'public'. This means that these sites are intended to be found, whether via search engines such as google or service-specific search books in tools like facebook or twitter. So, here are two suggestions:
- Consider using your own name: You might consider using your own name, especially if you hope to publish under this name in the future. You will want to check and make sure that it is not already 'taken'. Type in the url in your browser and see if it is still available. For example, you might type in:
- myname.net
- myname.org
- myname.com
You will also want to see if the name is already being used in the most popular social media sites. For example:
- facebook.com/myname
- twitter.com/myname
- myname.posteorus.com
- flickr.com/people/myname
Once you decided upon a name, use for all sites, anything that you publish and so forth. Plan on using it for a long time because this name will become associated with you. The name becomes, in fact, your own brand. The longer you are connected to a brand, the more difficult it will be to move away from it in the future.
Profile/usernames that are different than your name may be ok, if you do a good job of branding it, this leads to our second suggestion...
- Be consistent: Whatever name you choose, use the same one everywhere if possible. Change existing accounts (you can do this in twitter for instance) or delete your present accounts and create new ones with the correct name (you would have to do this in flickr for example). Do the difficult work now; it will pay dividends later
- Consider purchasing the your name as a domain: Purchasing your own domain name not only ensures that you are found when others search for you, but it also protects your name/brand. For instance, someone with your profile name might have a felony or be a porn star, etc. If you purchase your domain name, get the .com, .net, .org domains if possible. It will cost roughly 7/domain/yr = $21/yr, which is really quite cheap. Moreover, you don't even have to point the domains to a web site! You can simply squat on them to ensure that no one else purchases them up if you wish! If you decide to purchase the your domain name, 1and1.com is a good, reputable place to buy them. Note, you do not have to purchase their hosting options to purchase the domain.
In summary, choose a "public" username/profile that you can use long term, use it consistently everywhere, and, if it makes sense for you, consider protecting your profile name by purchase the domain.