Changing your Twitter name without losing followers is actually a fairly easy process, thanks to Alicia’s post on how to change your Twitter handle. If you’ve changed your business name or your Twitter handle is different than your other social media profiles now’s the time to change your name. It’s important to use the same name throughout your company’s online profiles so that your business is easy to find. Before you start, you should check to see if your username is available. This video has some tips on how to check domain name and username availability.
We recently had to change our client’s Twitter name when they rebranded from Canadian Bookshelf to The 49th Shelf and these are the steps we took:
1. Hold Your Desired Name
- Because we had a set date when we were switching over to the new name, we wanted to hold our desired name so that it would still be available when we switched over.
- To do this, create a new Twitter account with the new username.
Note: Anytime you create a Twitter account, you need to use an email address that isn’t associated with any other Twitter accounts, so you’ll need to have a different email address that you can use.
2. Change Your Twitter Name
- When you’re ready to change your Twitter name, go into the “fake” account that is holding the new name and under Settings (in the drop down under the person icon) > Account, change the username to one of the default names Twitter suggests.
Note: Change the username in your fake account, rather than deleting the account. This is because Twitter holds the information of deleted accounts (including the username) for 30 days.
- Now log in to your active Twitter account and, just like you did in the fake account, change your username to your new name under Settings > Account. You’ll also want to go into Settings > Profile and change your name, website URL and bio to reflect the new name.
3. Claim Your Old Name
- Next, create a Twitter account with your old name. This is so you can monitor any mentions or messages that people send using your old name.
- Create a Twitter account using the exact same name and handle as your old account. In the bio, mention the name change and link to your new Twitter profile. Also post a tweet saying that you’ve moved with a link to the new profile. If you don’t tweet anything else, this message will stay at the top of the profile and direct people who are looking for you to your new name.
For more help on changing your Twitter username, watch this related video:
