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The Importance of a URL Strategy in Social Media
If your company does business on the Web, it’s likely that you have gone to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, looking for your business name. Having these accounts are quickly becoming a must.
Being in the industry I’m in, I keep track of new social networks sites better than most. And whenever I find a new network that looks like it’s beneficial for business, I quickly grab the username for my company, and the clients who keep us on retainer. But a few months ago, I was appalled to learn I missed grabbing the username for one of my companies on a popular social network. I went to sign up, and sure enough, some unethical marketer had already grabbed our name. The clearly were not going to use the account, but rather just tell people who stumbled on to it to try their service instead, which looked like it never actually launched.
One could argue that this was a silly move from that individual; they really gained nothing other than showing me how petty an unethical they are, but that doesn’t fix the problem created by not having my brand name on that network. Clearly that individual put themselves at legal risk, and I could go the legal route and sue that person. But either way, I started thinking that there needs to be a way to protect your brand with these networks.
While consulting with clients in social media, I have started recommending that they maintain an internal URL strategy for social media. For example, with USWeb we have started using sub-domains like; facebook.usweb.com, twitter.usweb.com, and youtube.usweb.com. Every link we put to our Facebook, Twitter, or other pages, we first pass through our designated sub-domain, which then re-directs over to the appropriate page.
This may seem like a small detail, but consider the impact it would have on your brand if someone else grabbed your name in Twitter and started sending messages. The best defense to this is to point everyone to your correct Twitter account from your website. Another defense is to make sure that your customers, or fans, get accustomed to your naming schema so that they know how to get to your official account.
Kayne West is a great example of the type of nightmare that can be encountered. West has recently taken issue with the fact that someone else is Twittering under his name. West should approach this issue by first publicizing his own Twitter account on his site, and second, publicizing the address as twitter.kaynewest.com.
This is an approach that increases in effectiveness the more people and companies use it. So I would encourage everyone to begging this practice, even if you have your company name secured on these accounts.
Being in the industry I’m in, I keep track of new social networks sites better than most. And whenever I find a new network that looks like it’s beneficial for business, I quickly grab the username for my company, and the clients who keep us on retainer. But a few months ago, I was appalled to learn I missed grabbing the username for one of my companies on a popular social network. I went to sign up, and sure enough, some unethical marketer had already grabbed our name. The clearly were not going to use the account, but rather just tell people who stumbled on to it to try their service instead, which looked like it never actually launched.
One could argue that this was a silly move from that individual; they really gained nothing other than showing me how petty an unethical they are, but that doesn’t fix the problem created by not having my brand name on that network. Clearly that individual put themselves at legal risk, and I could go the legal route and sue that person. But either way, I started thinking that there needs to be a way to protect your brand with these networks.
While consulting with clients in social media, I have started recommending that they maintain an internal URL strategy for social media. For example, with USWeb we have started using sub-domains like; facebook.usweb.com, twitter.usweb.com, and youtube.usweb.com. Every link we put to our Facebook, Twitter, or other pages, we first pass through our designated sub-domain, which then re-directs over to the appropriate page.
This may seem like a small detail, but consider the impact it would have on your brand if someone else grabbed your name in Twitter and started sending messages. The best defense to this is to point everyone to your correct Twitter account from your website. Another defense is to make sure that your customers, or fans, get accustomed to your naming schema so that they know how to get to your official account.
Kayne West is a great example of the type of nightmare that can be encountered. West has recently taken issue with the fact that someone else is Twittering under his name. West should approach this issue by first publicizing his own Twitter account on his site, and second, publicizing the address as twitter.kaynewest.com.
This is an approach that increases in effectiveness the more people and companies use it. So I would encourage everyone to begging this practice, even if you have your company name secured on these accounts.
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The First USWeb Foundation Scholarship WinnerJullaion Jones is the first recipient of the USWeb Foundation scholarship.
The USWeb Foundation School in CambodiaIn partnership with American Assistance for Cambodia the USWeb Foundation has committed the funds to build a school in rural Cambodia.
