From start-ups to rebranding, businesses often struggle to find the right name for their company or product. Is the name unique enough to differentiate us from the competition? Will clients easily be able to determine what our business is? But social media presents a new challenge when it comes to choosing a new name.

And Tungsten Branding President and Owner Phillip Davis on Social Media Today touches on it in his piece 5 SEO Strategies When Naming and Branding Your Company:

“Clear your company name across all the social networks.”

And it’s savvy advice considering that Netflix’s umpteenth public relations crisis this year was choosing a brand name, Qwikster, that was already being used on Twitter by a regular joe whose avatar was a pot-smoking Elmo. Phillip recommends a site like namechk.com to determine name availability on social networks.

From connecting with shareholders to engaging consumers, social media is an increasingly critical part of being successful in business and it’s only going to get bigger.  According to the latest social media advertising statistics published by Gartner, global social media revenues are on a roll. The worldwide market is on track to hit US$10.3 billion this year, a 41.4 percent jump from US$7.3 billion in 2010. It will reach US$14.9 billion by 2012 and by 2015, nearly double this amount at US$29.1 billion. Companies are reserving divisional names, campaign names, executives names, derivations of names and the list goes on.  So, just remember this when launching a start-up or rebranding a service, you’re likely already investing time and resources into choosing the perfect name. Taking the additional, but simple, extra step of running a social media name check will help you avoid potentially embarrassing branding snags.

At Social Strategy1 we will perform all of the research needed to provide insightful feedback that may or may not change your mind on how you will be branding a product or your business. Got a question or a comment?  Let’s talk about it below.

Image Courtesy The Mac Observer