Do You Own Your Name?

This might sound like an odd question, but in the world of the Internet, it's not. If you are in business, or if you're an author, your name is out there, not just the name of your company or book. That means it is in your best interest to own it everywhere possible.

By now, most people know about the popularity of Facebook and usually accounts are in their name or, if female, name plus maiden name is common too. If you've done that, great!

But what about the others? Do you own your name on Twitter? Maybe. How about YouTube? That's right YouTube. I hadn't really thought about YouTube until one of my mentors mentioned it's definitely a place where you want to own your name if you can. So now I do. I will likely promote via YouTube in the future, now I can do it using my own name in the link if I choose to. The next one I need to check is LinkedIn, but I'm pretty sure I've seen another Cheryl Pickett come up in searches linked to that site.

Now some of you might be saying, 'but I don't ever intend to use some of those sites'. That's fine, not everything is right for everybody. If you're building an online presence though, you can help keep continuity by owning your name and not letting someone else build a reputation people might confuse for yours (whether it's good or bad).

If you have a really unusual name, you might not have to worry much about others taking your spot, and if you have a super common name, you're probably out of luck already, but somewhere in between, you might want to do some investigation. If all you do is open an account with the big three (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter), at least you have it for the future, even if you aren't ready to jump in this minute.

So now it's your turn to share- where do you own your name? Did you miss out anywhere with the basic first/last, how did you handle it?

Good Writing & God Bless,
Cheryl Pickett