I Want To Be An Astronaut

Kirsty Henshaw is the most popular of the latest entrepreneurs to successfully leave the Dragon’s Den with an investment, and rightly so. With her awe inspiring and heartfelt pitch it was impossible not to share Kirsty’s passion for the Worthenshaws brand she had worked so hard to build.

Since achieving triumph in the Den Twitter has been one of the key PR platforms for the Worthenshaws brand managed personally by Kirsty. However as most brands who are seasoned users of Twitter will know; the smallest of changes can have the most catastrophic consequences.

This was demonstrated when earlier on this evening the Worthenshaws Twitter @username was changed from the brand to Kirsty’s own name. Decisions like this shouldn’t be made abruptly, especially when you’ve been working hard to build up a solid reputation for your business on Twitter and have a large following.

So the what were the issues that occured here, and how could they’ve been avoided. First lets take a look at the issues before we look at the alternative routes that could of prevented them:

How many sources are linking to your current Twitter @username?
Reviews, press releases, blogs & anywhere else it may have been quoted. If you’ve been advertising the fact that your business is on Twitter then chances are people will have quoted the @username. In this example you can see that just by making a Google search for the original Twitter account there are numerous results showing. In fact even the website itself is linking to the old account name which is of course now being cyber squatted!

Protect your brand name!
Unfortunately this is where the biggest error took place. When the original @username was naively changed a cyber squatter immediately took advantage of the free traffic that would be directed to the account. The risk here is also that the cyber squatter who has control of the Twitter @username could quite easily post tweets that are detrimental to the brand.

What actions should have been taken to prevent these issues?

1. Always register a new Twitter account for the sought after @username before making any changes to your current Twitter @username. By doing this you now have control over both usernames and can change simultaneously as necessary but still have complete control.
2. When you make the change and swap your @username with the new Twitter account you have created then make sure you post a Tweet defining your new @username for all of the traffic that the sources linking into it can use as a reference.

Because these necessary precautions were not taken the @Worthenshaws username has now been cyber squatted, and Twitter clearly states:

“Twitter usernames are provided on a first-come, first-served basis and may not be reserved.”

The only way to legitimately regain control of the username would to be if the Worthenshaws brand name was protected by a trademark. Which as far as I am aware it is not. Therefore it is unfortunately a case of learning from mistakes.

I took the liberty of registering @WorthenshawsUK as the next best thing and am happy to hand over the details upon request, please follow @GooeyLewy and drop me a Direct Message.