How To Change Your Business’s Social Media Handles

If your business is rebranding you’ll have a lot of changes you’ll need to make to ensure the new brand is consistent across the board. When Optix rebranded it made us aware of just how many places our brand was used both offline and online. Here is a basic guide to changing your username on some of the most popular social media networks.

Disclaimer: this information in this post is based on each network’s help pages and should be correct. If you notice anything incorrect please let me know in the comments and I’ll update the post.

Twitter

Your Twitter account uses two names: your display name (referred to by Twitter as your “real name”) and your username which is what people type in to Tweet you. This sets your URL and is probably something you’d want to change less often.

Your display name can be edited easily whenever you want, this doesn’t have any impact on your followers etc. Your display name can be up to 20 characters long and doesn’t have to be unique to you. Your username can also be edited but you’ll need to ensure the name you want hasn’t been taken already. When you edit your username your followers might get confused when trying to @ you so you wouldn’t want to change this regularly.

Twitter Help Page

LinkedIn

Minor company name changes can be made but if it needs to be changed to something completely different a new company page needs to be created. I haven’t tested what constitutes a “minor” name change but LinkedIn’s example is a very slight change:

“For example: Company Name Inc. can be changed to Company Name LLC. However, it cannot be changed to something completely different such as Business Name Inc.”

Unfortunately you can’t migrate Followers from one company page to another so if you do need to make a new company page you’ll need to ask your Followers to follow your new page. Company names can only be changed by an administrator and only once every 30 days.

LinkedIn Help page

Facebook

For a Facebook Business page you need to change both the Page name and the User name. Your Username needs to be unique and is directly tied to your page’s URL.

Page Name

1. Click About on the left side of your Page

2. Click Page Info

3. Hover over the Name section and click Edit

4. Enter a new Page name and click Continue

5. Review your request and click Request Change

User Name

1. Click About on the left side of your Page

2. Click Page Info

3. Click Edit next to the Username section

4. Enter a new username

5. If the username is available click Create Username

Facebook Help Page

Instagram

Instagram is another social network which uses a display name and a username. Your display name doesn’t need to be unique and can be changed without any knock on impact. Your Username needs to be unique and if you change it your followers might get a bit confused when trying to find you or tag you in a post.

You can edit your account information online from this page https://www.instagram.com/accounts/edit/.

Instagram Help Page

YouTube

Your YouTube Channel name can be edited by going to https://www.youtube.com/advanced_settings. If your account is connected to your Google account you will need to change that and it might take a while for YouTube to catch up. There are limitations to how often you can change your YouTube channel name:

YouTube Help Page

Other Things to Bear in Mind

If you’re making changes to your social media profiles which will result in changes to their URLs remember that these are probably linked to from various places. For example does your site have links to your social profiles? Are they listed in any offline materials? Do some profile link to others (for example your YouTube channel header can link to other social media profiles)?

If you’re making changes to all of your social media profiles it’s probably best to do them all at the same time to keep things consistent. Make sure you’re aware of what usernames are available before making any changes so that you’re fully prepared. Pick a quiet time and make sure you have any rebranded images ready to go.

Here is a more comprehensive list of the places your brand might need changing online:

• Twitter

• Facebook

• LinkedIn

• YouTube

• Instagram

• Snapchat

• Google My Business

• Glassdoor

• Yell.com

• Pinterest

• Medium

• Industry specific sites

• Slideshare

• Jobs Boards

• EventBrite

• Any Microsites

• Apps

• Tik Tok