Everyone is using social media these days, social media has the biggest impact on the society of the modern world. Businesses trying to hop on social media of increasing their audience base bur most of them get confused with features and some terms like Social media handles.
In this context, we will discuss the terms of Social media handles and understand the possibilities of growing business through social media.
Explain Social Media Handle?
Social media handles are the username you create on the social platform to represent yourself publicly. Now you create usernames on some other platform that are not meant for public representation and serve completely different purposes.
Suppose you created the username and password in order to login into the payment transaction app but you will not provide this username publicly to everyone because this is not your platform handle. Nobody should know the detail of your transaction app.
Origin Of the term “Handle”
The term handle is being used for a long time from now. In the 20th century, someone who is well educated professional and has a designation earned like Dr. and Professor was considered to have handles.
This term is used on the Citizen band radio by commercial truck drivers. In the crises of imposing speed limit and fuel shortage, so to communicate truck drivers went on citizen band radio and they called themselves by the nickname, which is later called handle.
When the internet came around and everybody has instant access to messaging platforms and social media platforms like form discussion, people called their username a ” handle” in an informal way.
Use Of Social Media Handle?
Social Media handle is used as a public username to communicate with the masses, every social media platform provides handles when your account on them and use the account for messaging and posting something. A social media handle has importance because of the distinct communication.
As a business you will be able to get identified easily on the social platform by your unique social media handle like on Twitter or Facebook other business can tag you by using @username in the social media post. A social media platform with a considered engagement is completely connected with social media handles.
Difference between Handle and Display Name
Most Social platforms allow the users to select different display names than their handles. On Social platforms, many users have the same display name but a completely unique handle.
So therefore Social media handles are like IP address or website address which is unique to every user. Most of the users would not get the desired social media handle but there are things you can do to keep the brand name and get around with unique handles for your social media.
Social Media Handles On Different Platforms
In Facebook two types include in your profile:
- Name: This name is called a display name. It comes in more bold letters and easily can be seen in your profile, but it purely unique to your brand.
- Username: This one is called the Social media handle. This username is the main associate with your profile, it comes with @username and used to login into the profile, included in the URL of the page.
You can choose whatever name available for username, if your name is available add some word before and after the main brand name, it will accept the username. Follow the Facebook user guideline.
According to the Facebook guideline, the username must be at least 5 characters to 50 characters long limit. Also should have contained a letter, number, and periods. Most users use periods like (.) in their users, for example, (@barryAllen to same to barry.Allen)
Also, you can check your own username by logging into your Facebook profile, on the top right corner Click on Arrow and choose Setting and Privacy then Setting.
From the left sidebar Click on General and now you can edit and change the username of your own Facebook profile.
In twitter as you login into your Twitter account, it pretty much has the same option as Facebook does when it comes to displaying name and handles.
- Name: This is the display name that comes with the bolder letter and if you are verified you will have a tick.
- Username: This is called the Social media handle. This username is the main associate with your profile, it comes with @username and used to login into the profile, included in the URL of the page
Here we are taking the example of Netflix as they used the @netflix username on their Twitter handle. Including the company as a URL something like this twitter.com/netflix.
There are guidelines you have to keep in mind when using creating a username, follow the Twitter username guideline.
- Maximum character limits up to 15 char.
- Should contain Letter, number, and underscore.
- This underscores different accounts. for example, @barryAllen is completely different from barry_Allen).
Instagram seems quite similar to Twitter, Instagram provide the username to be unique for the users. Suppose you want to tag somebody in the post you’re shared you can do that by simply putting their handle like @username.
By doing this simply the tagged person will get notified that you tag them in post or comment. The tagged username is clickable so anyone can visit their profile page.
- Name: This is the display name that comes with the bolder letter and it appears in the smaller text on the profile.
- Username: This is called the Social media handle. This username is the main associate with your profile, it comes on first in your profile and used to login into the profile, included in the URL of the page.
Below is the guideline you have to follow:
- The maximum character limit is 30 char.
- Should have contained letters, numbers, periods, and underscores.
- This underscores different accounts.
List of Social Media Handles
- Facebook – 2.23 billion Monthly Active Users.
- YouTube – 1.9 billion Monthly Active Users.
- WhatsApp – 1.5 billion Monthly Active Users.
- Messenger – 1.3 billion Monthly Active Users.
- WeChat – 1.06 billion Monthly Active Users.
- Instagram – 1 billion Monthly Active Users.
- QQ – 899 million Monthly Active Users.
- Twitter – 330 million Monthly Active Users.
Do Your Social Media Handles Available
When your start using social media for your business or for yourself, you need to create a username aka Social Handles. Sometimes these handles are not available right away to select. Below are the tips you can consider:
- Most of the users used the first name and last for personal profile and the same condition is with business brands. Something like this very easy to understand and try adding words in the name.
- The personal profile uses a personal nickname on the platform, it works just fine.
- Easy to remember and easy to type always has its own benefits, people will remember it, and the chances of misspelling are very low.
- Try to avoid the number and additional special character to your handle, it will make your profile a duplicate version of the original. If you do it intentionally and signifies you and your brand then it just fine.
- Platforms that help the availability of username.
- Make use of the capital letters in the username, Instagram uses all lowercase. The capital letter makes the username look bolder.
Conclusion
In this blog, we discussed the social media handles on various platforms and how they are created, and with limitations of guidelines, a little bit f the history and origin of the word Social media handles. It’s a great way to represent yourself on social media.