This post was originally published on June 6, 2008.


I attended the American Marketing Association meeting this afternoon in Phoenix. A friend of mine, Matthew O'Brien, was presenting social media marketing, in particular the use of video. You can find him on Twitter: @Blogster or by visiting his new Social Media Marketing company: Mint Social. Anyway, one of the side notes was that creating identities on social networks with your company name may not be the best choice, for a number of reasons:

  1. You may change companies
  2. Your company changes names as part of a transition (e.g. purchased, dissolved, etc.) 
  3. A descriptive keyword might be more powerful from an SEO perspective   
My Twitter name, @ThoughtLava, is the name of one of my companies: ThoughtLava. That company is a Web development company. About three months ago, it stopped taking new Web development business.

My other company is Semanticator. Which if you've been following this blog or anything with my name on it - you'd realize I am quite proud of it - technology that enables websites to detect representatives from key market segments upon their arrival - reducing bounce and increasing conversion.

So, I have been contemplating changing my Twitter Name for about a month. My fear was that I would lose the equity I've worked hard to build (271 Followers as of June 5, 2008). Long story short, I ran a number of tests across a few Twitter accounts I set up for this purpose. Once I understood how Twitter was going to react, I was more comfortable with my decision to make the switch. If you want my step-by-step instructions - click here.

You can now find me on Twitter as @JohnScottDixon - that's my personal brand!