Get a Handle on Your Handles!

What is in a handle?

A handle by any other name would be just as important.

“What the heck are you talking about, Loni? Handles?!?!”

We aren’t talking about the verb “to feel or manipulate with the hands,” or the noun “the part by which a thing is held, carried, or controlled.” We are actually going to look at the noun of the word handle that means, “a name or nickname,” or “a person’s username on an online forum or social media site.”

LinkedIn defines a social media handle as: a name a person or a company uses for their social media account when posting to various online platforms. Some social media handles are the name of a company or an abbreviation of it. A social media handle is important because it represents a company's place online, gives new viewers an initial first impression of your brand and allows existing customers to find a business' account. When companies create a social media handle customers remember, it may make it more likely that they revisit the profile or follow it for more content. Creating an appealing social media profile can be an important aspect of social media marketing and can increase the chances of customer retention when businesses use their profiles to interact with followers.

You might not have noticed social media handles before, but they are pretty important.

Having an updated handle helps people find and tag your page easier.

Wherever possible, you should make your handle short, sweet, and consistent.

Updating Your Handles

When you set up your Instagram account, your handle is pretty much immediately created. Your Instagram name IS your handle. However, you will need to take a few extra steps to update your handle for other social media sites.

LinkedIn makes your handle update pretty easy.

YouTube allows you to update your handle in your YT Studio settings.

However… It gets pretty tricky to update your Facebook business page handle, but it CAN be done. Check out these steps on updating your Facebook handle.