Usernames 101 + How to Get Your First 1,000 Followers

Usernames. 101 social media marketing is a powerful tool that can help businesses connect with their target audience, build brand awareness, and ultimately drive sales. In order to effectively leverage social media, it is important to have a strong online presence across all relevant platforms. The first step in creating a strong online presence is to secure your usernames, also known as handles, on all social media platforms. By doing this, you ensure that your brand name or desired handle is consistent across all platforms and easily identifiable by your audience. This continuity is important because it makes it easier for your audience to find you and engage with you on all the various platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, and so on. So to secure your username on all social media platforms, you should start by conducting a thorough search to identify if your preferred username is available on each platform. This is crucial for establishing your brand presence and to prevent others from taking your desired username. So first, you can check username availability on each individual social media platform. Or you can use a website like this name checker.com. So what if your username is taken? The goal is to secure your brand name on each social media platform. While continuity is key when it comes to usernames on social media. If one of the social media platforms doesn't match, it's not the end of the world. That's okay. So, for example, we had the username at Course Envy for every social media platform except for Instagram. So what we did was secured the next best thing, a great high searched keyword phrase that was at marketing course. As our brand grew and we saw the value in acquiring and paying for our course envy trademark. We worked with an IP lawyer to secure it, and with that course envy trademark, we could legally force social media platforms to provide us with our trademarked at brand name username. So with that course trademark in hand, we emailed Instagram's legal department, sent them our course envy trademark, and they issued us the at course envy username. So if your username is taken or you have a scenario like us, just one of the platforms doesn't match your At brand name. The best practice is to secure the next best username for your brand. This includes brand name.com, so this is simply spelling out your URL as the username. Next official brand name such as official course envy. Next real brand name. So at real course envy or add a the to brand name the course envy. Next we can add location to our brand name. If we're online only, we could use course envy HQ for headquarters or course Envy online. If we're a local brick and mortar business only in Dallas, Texas, or only in the USA, we could add that to the N brand name place. Next is verb brand name such as try course envy, git course envy. Ask course. Envy. Next brand name and then a descriptor for your business such as a keyword like course envy app or course envy courses. And finally, is just securing a main target keyword that you're going to appear in a lot of search results for, such as app marketing course at alternative MBA at business school. These are all keywords we want to rank for, for course TV.com anyway, so it's a great practice to secure these main target keyword usernames for various social media accounts as well. So for username requirements, first keep it simple. Your username should be easy to read, spell, remember and type. Avoid any special characters or numbers that may confuse users. Second, make it relevant. Your username should reflect your brand or business. It should be consistent with your brand name and convey your message or mission. Third, be unique. Choose a username that is not already taken by someone else. This will help avoid confusion and ensure that your brand name is easily identifiable on each platform. Remember, continuity is great if we can have that same username on each platform. Fourth. Keep it short. Many social media platforms have a character limit for usernames. Try to keep your username as short as possible while still being descript and relevant. Shorter is easier to remember. Finally, avoid trademark infringement. Do not use a username or brand name that infringes on someone else's trademark or intellectual property. This can lead to legal issues and damage to your brand reputation later on. So before even creating a business name, selecting my brand name, and then obviously securing usernames, I want to do a trademark search. So I'll navigate to this trademark search website. On this page select the basic word mark search. Then I will type in our brand name into the search term field and click the Submit Query button. Then I will browse all the live trademarks to confirm there aren't any matches for our brand name. If you have the funds up front or as you start to grow, I suggest speaking with an intellectual property lawyer to secure your trademark for your brand. Now let's talk about the importance of two factor authentication when creating your social media accounts. Two for two factor authentication is an extra layer of security that requires users to provide a second form of ID, such as a code, in addition to their password when logging in. By using two for, you, add an extra layer of protection to your social media accounts and prevent unauthorized access. Hackers and cybercriminals are always on the lookout for weak passwords and unsecured accounts. By using two factor authentication, you significantly reduce the risk of your social media accounts being hacked or compromised. This is important because a security breach can damage your brand reputation and cause financial loss. So when creating your social media accounts, use an email address you plan to never share publicly. For example, while are known publicly support email address is info at course envy, which is known by hackers as well. We use a private email address for our social media account logins. That isn't published anywhere online and no one knows except for us and our staff. This acts as just one more layer hackers will have to figure out to access our accounts. So while you're creating each one of your social media accounts, you'll be prompted to enable security or enable tufa or enable two step verification. Accept that and follow the security prompts for each varying platform. The top rated apps for two step verification codes are Google Authenticator and Authy. So when you're logging in, you'll input your password, and then it will prompt you to look at one of these two apps to retrieve a code, which is that second layer of security that you'll input. And then you can log into your social media account. How to get your first 1000 followers. So let's jump right in and start learning how to get your first 1000 followers on social media. Obviously, we'll dive much deeper in each section of this course later on to teach you the specific details and optimizations for all the various social media platforms, but we want to give you some actionable tasks to complete yet today for growing your following on the most popular social media networks. So first, our top eight tips for growing your following on social media. Number one, define your target audience. Identify your ideal customer or follower and create content that resonates with them. Research their interests, their pain points, their needs to help you create content that addresses those issues or interests. Number two optimize your profile. Obviously, we expand on this a lot more later in the course, but at the bare minimum, make sure your profile is complete with everything filled out and optimized for your target audience, including a professional profile photo such as your brand logo and a clear and concise bio with a link to your website and relevant keywords to make it easy for people to find your brand via searches such as US online courses. Facebook ad agency. Online marketing tips. Those are keywords we want to include in our bios. Third, consistency is key. Post regularly and consistently to keep your followers engaged. I suggest using a content calendar to plan and schedule your post in advance. We use the software Radio.com to schedule our multiple posts per day on each platform. Fourth, use hashtags like keywords. Hashtags help increase your visibility and reach on social media. So use these relevant hashtags in your posts to make it easier for people to discover your content. So for our brand, that would be hashtag marketing course, hashtag Facebook ads, hashtag Facebook ads tutorial, and so on. Number five engage with your audience. Respond to comments. Respond to messages. Interact with your followers on a regular basis. This helps build a relationship with your audience and creates a sense of community around your brand. Six collaborate with others. This can mean cross promoting with other brands that have an audience that would be interested in your product, and vice versa, or that could be paying an influencer in your industry to promote your product to reach a wider audience and their audience. Partnerships and collaborations can really help increase your visibility and grow your following. Seventh and the most important in my book, create valuable content and information that your audience finds helpful or interesting. This helps establish you as an authority in your industry and builds trust with your followers. Plus, people love sharing content that provides value to their friends and their followers. And finally, promote your social media accounts. Include links to your various social media accounts on your website, in your email signature, and any other marketing materials to help promote your social media accounts and encourage people to follow you. So let's get our first 1000 followers on Facebook with our hundreds of marketing clients. We've found Facebook Loves videos. So check out facebook.com slash watch for inspiration. We see the highest engagement and most new followers when we post videos on our Facebook pages. The best video content includes user generated content product reviews. People love a good infomercial style, hands on personal feedback, testing and review videos in general. Next are DIY videos or do it yourself. Film yourself building or assembling things, creating art or crafts, or making a recipe. Third, emotional or hilarious content. People are more likely to share content that makes them cry, laugh, or feel inspired. Think motivational videos. Now, for our clients, the highest engagement are pranks and candid camera videos. So consider these three popular areas of video categories and apply that lens to your brand. How can I create one of these videos for my specific industry or niche? So your task. Open your Facebook page, click the Create Post field and upload the video you've created, and add text to your post caption that will pique curiosity, therefore making people want to watch your video, share your video and increase Facebook organic reach, creating more engagement and more followers for you. So one of my favorite captions for piquing curiosity is what happened? I did not expect dot dot dot that makes people want to click the video. Your first 1000 followers on Instagram Instagram favors reels. Non follower reach is highest on Instagram. For reels we see ten x higher engagement and followers from reels over other Instagram content such as posts and stories. So your task open your Instagram app. Click that plus button in the bottom center of your app to add content. Select reels for type of content. Tap the flip camera button and record a selfie video of yourself providing free value, such as tips and tricks specific to your brand or industry. Once your video is complete, click next. Then, tap the sticker icon at the top of the screen and select the caption sticker. 80% of Instagram users watch reels on mute. Think about it. People are in the bathroom. People are in class. People are at work. They watch Instagram Reels muted. So these captions are important. Finally, share your reel. Your first 1000 followers on Twitter. For Twitter, you want to ride the trend? Wave. So open your Twitter account and click the explore page and click the trending tab. So obviously first you want your Twitter profile optimized, filled out bio and tweet a few relevant value providing pieces of content in a few tweets just to have a little content on your Twitter before doing your task today. So for this task, you want to click on these varying top ten trending topics each day and then click on tweets for these trending topics that have the highest views. We are going to reply to these high view tweets. So add your relevant commentary on this tweet topic that adds value to the tweet. So as other users, click this popular tweet today and scroll up to read the replies, they'll see your reply and if they like your commentary or value provided, they'll most likely click your profile and a percentage of those users will follow your Twitter account. Your first 1000 Followers on Pinterest. Pinterest promotes idea pens. So for this you'll want to create a free account on Canva.com. This is a graphic design website and search for Pinterest Idea pen templates. Look at all the templates and create an idea pen relevant to your brand's niche. These are step by step tutorials, recipes, DIY projects. Think of them as little mini PowerPoints that you swipe through step by step. These perform best on Pinterest and lead to a lot more Pinterest account followers. So once you've created your step by step idea, pen your task today. Open your Pinterest account, click that create option and publish your idea pen. Your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube. YouTube prefers shorts, so navigate to the YouTube shorts page as well as the YouTube trending page to get inspiration for your shorts. We get the highest likes, views and subscribers from interviews. This can be a podcast style or on the street with a mic style or behind the scenes employee interview style. These perform really well too. People love learning on YouTube, so provide value by teaching your audience via a YouTube short interview. So your task today. Open the YouTube app, log into your account. Click the plus button at the bottom center of the app. Click create a short, then film and upload your YouTube short interview. Learn from the best advertisers. Did you know you can see the exact ads? Huge brands with teams of 100 plus marketing professionals are using to sell their products and services at the URL below. Just type in the brand name you want to research and then learn from the best. Study everything successful brands are implementing from their ad image video content to ad copy to the website their ad directs people to. And then once on those websites, analyze everything, including call to action buttons, the copywriting value propositions, the lead capture pop up forms, everything. So this includes looking at ads for any brand, advertising on Facebook on TikTok, and make sure to check out the exact growth tactics the best marketers in the world are using via this last free URL. Your first 1000 followers. So now it's time to pause this video and go complete your task. Go create all your social media accounts and post our suggested content tag, or message us on any social media network at Course Envy and we will help you with any questions plus follow like, comment, share and engage with your content.