A Business Name Too Long for a Twitter Handle

Fifteen characters

A Twitter username, the handle after the @ sign, can be at most fifteen characters: letters, numbers and underscores, nothing else.

Plenty of business names are longer than that. A town's name, a family name and a description of the trade can reach thirty characters without trying.

So the name gets shortened, usually by whoever opened the account, on the day they opened it. The next network gets a different shortening, chosen by someone else on another day.

Customers who know the business by its full name are left guessing.

How shortening goes wrong

• Initials that mean nothing outside the business.
• Dropped vowels that look like a typing mistake.
• Underscores and numbers added because the first choice was taken.
• A different shortening on every network.
• The owner's name in place of the business's.

The fourth does the most damage. Someone who met you on one network tries the same name on the next, and finds a stranger or nothing at all.

What customers actually type

People search for a business by the name on its sign, its van or its invoice. They do not know the abbreviation, and they will not guess it.

The same applies when they mention you. Someone praising your work in a post will tag the handle they think you have, and that may belong to somebody else.

A handle only works if a customer can arrive at it from the name they already know.

Choose one short form

Pick a single short form and use it everywhere. It should be recognisably your name, readable aloud, spelled one obvious way, and free of underscores and numbers.

Say it over the phone to someone who has never seen it written. If they have to ask how it is spelled, try another.

The best short form usually keeps the distinctive part of the name and drops the generic words, such as services, company or limited.

Write it out run together, in lower case, and read it again. Words that are innocent apart can spell something unfortunate once the spaces go.

Check every network first

Before committing, check that the short form is free on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube, including the ones you do not use yet.

Each network has its own rules. Instagram allows thirty characters, and Facebook page addresses allow full stops but not underscores. A form that fits Twitter's fifteen letters and numbers will usually fit the others.

Check the domain too. A short form that matches your web address is one less thing for a customer to remember.

Register it on the networks you plan to use, so nobody else takes it in the meantime.

The display name carries the full name

Twitter's display name, shown in bold above the handle, allows twenty characters and can include spaces. Use it for the business's name, as fully as it fits, keeping the words a customer would search for.

Searches on Twitter look at display names as well as handles, so a full name there is how people find you by name.

Use the bio for whatever does not fit: the full name, the town and what you do. The other networks have their own name fields, and each should show the name on your sign.

A worked example

A school running yoga teacher training courses, in weekend modules over six months, has a name five words long: its town's name, then four words saying what it does.

Twitter got the town plus YTT, the abbreviation teachers use among themselves. Instagram, with more room, got the full name run together. The Facebook page used the founder's name, from before the school existed.

Applicants usually heard about the school from graduates, by name, and searched for it. On Twitter the display name was the abbreviation too, so a search for the full name found nothing.

Graduates tagging the school on Instagram often guessed a shorter form, which belonged to a studio in another country.

The school chose one form that was free on every network it uses: the town's name and the word yoga, run together. The Twitter handle was changed in settings, which kept every follower.

The display name now carries as much of the full name as fits, the bio spells out the rest, and the old handle was registered again as a quiet account pointing to the new one.

Changing a handle you already have

Twitter lets you change a handle in settings without losing followers or tweets. Links and mentions using the old handle stop reaching you, though.

The old handle also becomes free for anyone. Register it again straight away as a placeholder that points to the new one, so nobody can pose as you.

Tell followers about the change in a tweet or two. Then update the places the old handle was printed, starting with the website and email signatures. Business cards and signs can wait for their next printing.

List the exact handles on your site

Icons alone tell visitors that accounts exist, not what they are called. Write each handle out beside its icon, in the footer of every page, and link each one to its account so a visitor can follow with one tap.

Capitalise the words inside the handle for readability. Handles are not case-sensitive, so the capitals cost nothing and make a run-together name legible.

Use the same written handles on email signatures, cards, invoices and the sign in the window.

The counter-case

A business with a short name that fits everywhere has nothing to fix. Neither does one known by its initials, if customers really use them.

And a business on one network only can leave the others for later, as long as it checks the short form is still free before it starts.

For a long name on several networks, though, the fix is the same: one short form everywhere, the full name in the display name, and the exact handles on your website.

This week

1. Write down every handle you use now.
2. Choose one short form people can say and spell.
3. Check it is free on every major network.
4. Change the handles that differ.
5. Register the old handles as placeholders.
6. Put the full name in each display name.
7. List the handles in your website footer.

Step three is the one to do before any other. A short form that turns out to be taken on one network leaves you with two names again.

Matching the picture beside each name is covered in a different profile picture on every network.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.