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opinion Would You Trade a Social Media Username for a Domain?

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Social media usernames and domain names have more in common than you might think. The right username, just like the right domain name, can bring you traffic, improve your brand and attract attention from potential buyers or advertisers. Many companies have gone out of their way to try and acquire the right social media username.

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According to the New York Post, Chase Giunta was offered $20,000 to sell his Twitter username @chase. Elsewhere, a Twitter user with the handle @N has been offered as high as $50,000 to sell their name. But would you trade a social media username for a domain name?

Yesterday, a NamePros discussion was started by @JagG, after they noticed that the Twitter account @American is offering to trade a domain name in exchange for ownership of the @American Twitter username. According to the tweet, the owner of @American is looking for a “high level domain name”, which is clarified in a subsequent tweet as being a “2-3 letter or dictionary domain name”. The extension isn’t defined, but I assume that it’s meant to be .COM.

Two-letter .COM’s have routinely sold for over $1 million a piece, while three-letter .COM’s are firmly valued in the five figure range as a wholesale price. I don’t see that @American is worth anywhere near the value of a two or three letter domain, but I find it to be an interesting proposal, and something that could work in certain situations. For me, that would be a three or four figure domain name that is exchanged for a popular social media username that I could make money from in some way.

Twitter, along with most social media companies, has specific terms of service, stating that usernames cannot be bought or sold. Twitter’s terms state:

“Attempts to sell, buy, or solicit other forms of payment in exchange for usernames are also violations and may result in permanent account suspension.”

However, sales and trades do happen. I have never seen a domain name traded for a social media username, but I have read reports of account owners being paid a consultancy fee in exchange for their social media username. In one famous instance that was reported by the Guardian, the State of Israel paid a six figure sum for the Twitter name @Israel.

So, would you trade a social media username for a domain name? In certain circumstances, I would say yes. For me, the social media username would have to be a very popular term, and the username would have to already have a significant amount of followers, which would allow me to monetise the social media handle in some way.

It would be a serious risk to exchange a domain name for a social media username, since you are never the owner of the username. No matter how popular your social media account becomes, you never have full control of the username, and it could be suspended or taken away in an instant. In that regard, a domain name is far safer.

Aside from trading domain names for social media handles, exact match usernames can be used to successfully close a domain name sale, which I shared on the NamePros Blog in 2015.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
No renewal date on a Twitter name!
 
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Ideally I think you should have the .same .com as your social media name. I guess the real value would be in having the matched pair.
 
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being the zero cost to register a twitter account and no renewal fees ,its harder to get your name at that site than the .com being the president and everyone else is twittering they just may have more value RIGHT NOW than a .com. and for a company like chase to get their twitter handle[if you would for under 300k would be cheap. so yes there is a lot of value in these
 
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Hi,

Very interesting.

Thanks
 
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thanks great read, I just changed my username at twitter to @neckspeaker just to see if a trend invention gets the same attention. lol.
 
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It's against twitter tos to sell your handle. Just saying...
 
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Everyone is talking about Twitter, but how about YouTube - you can monetise that.
 
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oh I'm not, I'm going to set mine back to a regular one, just want to see. Then ill probably give it away free lol
 
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as in back to the pool, not someone
 
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I had sold @bhangra twitter account for five figure sum to the ABC Digital Distribution, a United Kingdom based company representing the largest portfolio of Bhangra music in the world
 
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I must say i have a good list of usernames, big money keywords, i'll give an example:

dvd_com
poker_com

Just waiting for the right time.
 
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Mistake I made (and I am probably not alone in this) is not getting the twitter / facebook / etc handles for the corresponding domains that I have.
 
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Mistake I made (and I am probably not alone in this) is not getting the twitter / facebook / etc handles for the corresponding domains that I have.

The problem with this is that you need tons of email addresses, but it does work. I've sold names to developers that have appreciated the social media handles and probably paid on top for them.
 
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I think this is the most important takeaway from the subject.

“Attempts to sell, buy, or solicit other forms of payment in exchange for usernames are also violations and may result in permanent account suspension.”
It would be a serious risk to exchange a domain name for a social media username, since you are never the owner of the username. No matter how popular your social media account becomes, you never have full control of the username, and it could be suspended or taken away in an instant.
 
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The problem with this is that you need tons of email addresses, but it does work. I've sold names to developers that have appreciated the social media handles and probably paid on top for them.

I suppose, maybe sell an average .com that comes with a free username .
 
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The problem with this is that you need tons of email addresses, but it does work. I've sold names to developers that have appreciated the social media handles and probably paid on top for them.

Exactly. I cant imagine the amount of overhead for managing those addresses!
 
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Exactly. I cant imagine the amount of overhead for managing those addresses!
Its pretty easy, just use a wildcard email for one of your domain names.
 
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Not that easy. Wildcard? You are restricted by accounts.
 
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The problem with this is that you need tons of email addresses,

Well that should be easy, especially for a domainer. The trickier part is when they want to text you a confirmation code. I wonder how many times you can use the same phone# for x handles...
 
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Not that easy. Wildcard? You are restricted by accounts.

Say i own the domain name abc.us

Point my nameservers where my domains are to my host, say: ns1.hostgator.com & ns2.hostgator.com

Set up an addon domain

Set up my email to capture all/wildcard to whatever@abc.us

Twitter accepts any unique emails to the left of @abc.us
 
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I believe you just need to be a little more creative and have a far sight of seeing potential in websites. You can earn shit load of money from that. Seriously I am also gonna make a few fancy usernames. Who knows if I may also get a offer.
 
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I believe you just need to be a little more creative and have a far sight of seeing potential in websites. You can earn sh*t load of money from that. Seriously I am also gonna make a few fancy usernames. Who knows if I may also get a offer.

You may have to keep them active too... I think I recall Twitter once stated that if a username wasnt used in some amount of time that it would become dormant and dormant accounts were subject to being closed or given to whomever requested it from Twitter. That was many years ago, their policy may have changed.
 
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