Watch this video first:

sECTION SUMMARY:

Marking your territory

The first step in establishing your firm foundation in digital strategy for your business or brand is to claim your name.

EVERY WHERE.

It does not matter if you plan to use each major social media network or not, you need to have dibs on your name. Unique usernames and URLs are hard to come by and it is very important that you own them all. But do not fret, there are ways around this if your name is already taken.

- The first step is to claim your name on all social networks and .com URL.

• Go to every major social media network and claim your username

• Purchase the URL that matches your name. Usually the only one necessary is the .com URL

- Reasons why this is important.

• Claiming your name means no one else will be able to impersonate your brand or compete with it using the same identifier

• Claiming your name means that should a specific network get insanely popular (hello, Facebook, instagram, & Twitter) that you already have a username/handle that matches your brand before it is gone

• Claiming your name is just another step of "owning" your brand

- How to shift your name without changing it if the exact one is already spoken for.

• Use the major identifiers to create your username and/or url instead of the entire formal name. Do not get worried that your entire name does not appear in your url and wonder if people will be able to find you. Appropriate use of search engine optimization (SEO) will clear this issue right up. We will talk more about SEO in a later module.

  • ex: www.alymcclure.com , It is just my name and does not say anything about marketing

  • ex: www.ae.com , American eagle has a web url that just uses their initials

  • ex: www.kansasbeef.org , Kansas Beef Council dropped the council part of their name to keep it easy and identifiable to their consumers without feeling to stuffy and coporate

Directly under the video you will find a button for the worksheet for this part of module 1. Use the worksheet to track your information across the interwebs. Please practice safety and keep this sheet in a private place or even a safe. Using pencil to record your information allows you to easily update it in the future when your password needs to be changed.

I hope you find this section informative and helpful. If you have any questions, share them in the Facebook group so that we can quickly and easily help you out!