Comments on: Twitter Handles: My Name or a Nickname?

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:14:50 +0000

Thanks for coming back and leaving your thoughts, Dana! I love the branding around what you’re doing and think it’s great because you’re creating the brand around all of your team. We have a client that we have them do CE (for Computer Explorers) and their first name, last initial – so mine would be CEGiniD. That shows the brand and their name. I think the way you’re doing it is great! Voila!

By: Dana Hughens

Dana Hughens — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 20:29:35 +0000

Hey, Gini. I had to come back and revisit this great conversation in light of discussions with a new hire on this very topic. After much thought…

In addition to continuing to buck the majority of advice given here by keeping @blah2voila instead of switching to danahughens, my new Clairemont team member will be tweeting under a handle similar to blah2voila as part of Clairemont’s branding.

Like any PR person, I have spent years trying to explain our profession to non-PR people when asked the “what do you do?” question. Additionally, my personal philosophy, and now a guiding thought for Clairemont, is that I/we exist to make things better for our clients. When they hire us, they can sigh in relief that they know — whatever the assignment is — that it will be handled, that they don’t have to worry about it and we will produce amazing results for them.

In other words, we go from blah to voila for them by either starting from nothing and doing incredible work or taking an existing program and wowing it out beyond their expectations. This seems to resonate with clients as well as non-comms people. We even have a B2V process that we outline for clients and ask them to define voila moments/outcomes.

So for myself and my agency, it is about our brand personality and a way to infuse a little creativity, fun and whimsy. I resisted the urge to name the company B2V PR — to me, that would have been over-the-top. But for Twitter handles and a light-hearted way to explain how we approach our work, it seems to be a good balance.

As for people calling me blah2voila… yeah, it happens. And that’s just fine with me. They usually ask what it means which gives me a chance to talk about what I do and my company.Perhaps one of the biggest compliments I’ve received came in the form of a tweet from our friend Kris Schindler who wrote that I am way more voila than I am blah.

So for now, I carry on & am excited to announce my new team member and her creative, quirky and brand-reinforcing handle in the coming weeks!

By: Craig (@TMNinja)

Craig (@TMNinja) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:12:57 +0000

Oh…you had to bring THAT up.

Yes, once upon a time, when I didn’t have my name or bio up there, that did happen.

Now, I do have my picture and name on my site. But, I still continue to use my brand name and logo on Twitter.

By: Sue Anne Reed

Sue Anne Reed — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:02:44 +0000

I’ve heard the same thing said about gmail accounts. I think in today’s world where its so easy to get a domain name and email address, any of the free email services look as if you’re not taking yourself seriously.

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:56:23 +0000

You bring up a very good point about your name in email, which is a VERY good way to think about your Twitter handle.

I have a friend who just started a business and still uses an AOL account. The other day he told me he incorporated and I said, “Does that mean you’re going to get a real email address?”

I think Twitter will be the same way – eventually if it’s not your name, from a business perspective, no one will take you seriously.

By: Sue Anne Reed

Sue Anne Reed — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:53:14 +0000

As a second thought, I’ve recently been thinking a lot about this in regards to my email handle. I had always anonymized my email handle somewhat, including using the random string of numbers (sreed1234) … Even though I’ll probably continue to use sreed1234@ for online forms, etc. I’m moving to sueanne@sueannereed.com for more professional things.

By: Sue Anne Reed

Sue Anne Reed — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:51:21 +0000

I usually think people should use their real name. Some people do really well at using their first name or some combination of their first and last name. I think some of the more corporate brands do a great job for the people that run their accounts. You know that @comcastbonnie works for Comcast. The same with @RubbermaidErin.

One of my friends actually proved to be a bit of an exception to this. Her twitter name was her last name for awhile. She has a hyphenated name and her twitter name was @BellRehwoldt. She had to spell it out every time, and it just didn’t come off very easy. She recently changed it to @CreativesMarket, which fits what she does and was a really great idea.

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:57:01 +0000

Um, we call you pizza cutie IRL.

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:40:34 +0000

No need to worry about the Library of Congress or stalkers, Jelena. It’s me stalking you. I’m harmless.

By: Gini Dietrich

Gini Dietrich — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 20:39:58 +0000

Two things to YOU:
1. I will ALWAYS call you TM. No matter what.

2. Didn’t you have a weird experience when I last saw you that someone thought the person behind the brand was female? That being said, I think you changed your avatar to be more masculine since then.

Also, this was totally for you! LOL!