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discuss Importance of social usernames?

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How important are social media usernames to you as a domain investor?

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.
  • Important

    10 
    votes
    33.3%
  • Semi-Important

    votes
    23.3%
  • Not Important

    13 
    votes
    43.3%
  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

Ryan3

Established Member
Impact
45
How important are social media usernames to you as a domain investor?

e.g. Do you check if the matching usernames are taken before buying a domain?
If one or more is taken, do you still buy the domain?
Do you register usernames for your best domains? or leave that to the end user?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Very important to me.
I absolutely consider being able to lock them down a significant part of the value proposition.

I would rate including them as a much higher value added service than the usual drawing a stupid logo stuff people seem to like doing.

Seriously start doing it. Send the logins with the domain. There is a very large segment of marketing people who will like you a lot for doing it.

I would go so far as to say I would pay a double digit percentage more for a name with top social media handles included.
Especially if its for desirable keyword rich domains.
 
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Social media handles are fairly important. I will try to secure a social media handle prior to purchasing a domain. I try to offer more than just a domain to clients when I sell, I offer a business.
 
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well. there are ways to promote it if you can't get the social media usernames.
 
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The user of the username could become a buyer the dot com or type in has it over the username. I am not investing in something I can't own so since I can't buy facebook I would rather net and org first and some cc codes if all so important keywords. People drop domains facebook don't drop usernames just add numbers and take them back if they can benefit Eg. willandkate
 
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The user of the username could become a buyer the dot com or type in has it over the username. I am not investing in something I can't own so since I can't buy facebook I would rather net and org first and some cc codes if all so important keywords. People drop domains facebook don't drop usernames just add numbers and take them back if they can benefit Eg. willandkate
yaasssss i totally agree social media usernames are useless. as long you own the .com,net,org than everything is good
 
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Social media is BIG. I have been buying usernames for my associated startups one by one when I can get the owner to relinquish. It's a cat and mouse game and it seems the $500-$1000 range is when the fish will bite.

The frustration is that MANY good and great usernames were registered in the heyday of the social media revolution by users that for whatever reason no longer has access to their account.

These usernames sit idle in a wasteland that the average person can't get to. Most companies have a policy of not recycling them.

If you are a startup hoping to "go viral", you better be thinking of social names at the SAME time as when you're picking the domain.

The only Social Media Names worth considering:

1. Facebook
2. Instagram
3. Twitter

As everyone knows, FB owns the first two. Which leads to the question: when are they going to buy up Twitter?
 
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Yes, I used to lock down every handle I could. Unfortunately doing this at scale requires some creativity. Last year (2019) was the first time I got inquiries FROM the handles on twitter I had regged 5+ years ago. With that comes heavy competition today.

The exact match is ideal, but the domain supersedes this need and it shows exactly how critical the domain truly is. You can vary your handle slightly, you shouldn't practice the same with a domain name.

Plus, let's not forget YOU DON'T OWN the handles. They could be taken away, blocked, or deleted by the owners at any point for any given reason.
 
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I have registered the Twitter handle for some of my brandables. On recent attempts, Twitter has been suspending the account soon thereafter. Has anyone experienced this? Perhaps if the domain (and Twitter handle) were to be sold, the new buyer could reactivate the account by playing nicely with Twitter and providing some personal info? Or, is it difficult to get a suspended account up and running?
 
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I have registered the Twitter handle for some of my brandables. On recent attempts, Twitter has been suspending the account soon thereafter. Has anyone experienced this? Perhaps if the domain (and Twitter handle) were to be sold, the new buyer could reactivate the account by playing nicely with Twitter and providing some personal info? Or, is it difficult to get a suspended account up and running?

I’ve experienced twitter thinking my accounts are spam a couple of times. Not for domain investment usernames but because I have so many personal projects each with social accounts. I always sent an appeal and they always approved it in the end because the appeal shows you’re not a robot. I explained that they are for my websites. I don’t know how they would respond if they knew you were selling domains instead of building websites so maybe tell them you’re creating a brand.

I also create a Gmail address for each of my personal projects (in order to create the social accounts) and found that after creating several, the only way Google would allow me to create any more was by creating the accounts on my phone instead of my computer. However, they’ve since added an option in the sign up process to label it as a business account so that might mean you can still use a computer but I still sign up on mobile out of habit now and then log in on my computer.
 
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I don't bother. Too much work, too little of success rate and too little value added IMO. Especially if you cannot identify/reach the current user who has those handles.

For most abandoned handles the platform won't do anything unless you are a legit business with an active trademark for that term. Making it much easier for an end user to aquire them on their own after they get the domain then I ever could. I've tried getting the exact match social handle by sending a request from my .com matching that username, no response. But I have heard many stories of companies registering a trademark then using that to get an abandoned social handle. Once the platform sees the requestorbis a legit business with a trademark they are more willing to delete the existing account. Probably do to the fact that they believe then that handle will be actually used improving their platform
 
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Social media handles are HUGE. It will improve your SEO and allow you to rank higher on google search without paying for ads. If you take the time to use the most trending hashtags on FB/IG/Twitter and even use to story function it will drive a good bit of traffic to your domain, especially if you have a lander. This is what I spend the majority of my time doing.
 
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Social media handles are fairly important. I will try to secure a social media handle prior to purchasing a domain. I try to offer more than just a domain to clients when I sell, I offer a business.

Internet Domains...Selling a business as well as the domain is brilliant. Thanks for the tip. It's appreciated!(y)
 
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Social media handles are HUGE. It will improve your SEO and allow you to rank higher on google search without paying for ads. If you take the time to use the most trending hashtags on FB/IG/Twitter and even use to story function it will drive a good bit of traffic to your domain, especially if you have a lander. This is what I spend the majority of my time doing.

Excellent take, I agree 100%. I have had many offers over the years for @DotTV and some cited SEO as a reason they wanted the handle.
 
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While they are important, it has become significantly more difficult to scale. The social media algorithms are becoming more and more sophisticated. If you're not careful, you might wind up getting the domain name you're registering the handle for blacklisted, which then becomes counterproductive. You need proprietary bots with very unique and highly randomized footprint, along with some very good proxies in order to barely fly under the radar.
 
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