Are you catching all tweets relevant to you? Do you wish you could change your Twitter Handle?
Alison Williams explains how an easy to find name, set up correctly, REALLY is useful.
Changing your Twitter username – easy steps
When I first braved Twitter I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Social media in all its various forms has been a huge learning curve for me. And as time has gone on, I’ve realised that I got some things wrong.
One mistake I made when I set up my Twitter account was with choosing my twitter username/handle. I wanted to use my actual name and unfortunately I have a really common name, so Alison Williams wasn’t available, and neither were any variations using numbers that weren’t far too complicated to use. So I decided to use a capital ‘i’ in place of one of the ‘L’s in Williams. Sorted.
Problems arose however when I was tagged in a tweet. For example, a book reviewer reviewed my novel and posted the review on her blog. She tweeted the review and included my username in the tweet. But she assumed that my twitter username was @AlisonWilliams. Of course, it actually wasn’t. So I didn’t see that tweet and therefore couldn’t retweet it. This means I lost out on sharing that review with a lot of people. The same thing happened when an editing client tweeted how pleased she was with the work I did for her – she asked me a few days later why I hadn’t retweeted. I lost out on some free advertising there.
I realised that I needed to change my username to something that, first of all, people could spell correctly, and secondly that would lead people to me on Twitter. So I decided to change my username to @AlisonW_Editor
This means that people tend to copy and paste the username when including me in a tweet, meaning that it can’t be spelled incorrectly. It also means that anyone looking for an editor on Twitter is more likely to find me.
Changing your username is really simple to do. Just go to your Twitter profile, use the drop down menu to select ‘settings’, and change the username listed in the username field. Click ‘save changes’ and you’re done. It doesn’t affect anything on your account; you keep all your followers, and all your past tweets, favourites and lists are still there.
The only issue I had was with my WordPress blog. My account is set up so that when I publish a new post, a tweet is instantly generated. Despite me disconnecting and then reconnecting my Twitter account, the old username refused to budge. It was time to call in some extra help – my twenty-year-old son! Who worked it out in a couple of minutes.
As with a lot of things on WordPress, the simple things are often the hardest to find. So if you have a WordPress blog and want to connect your Twitter handle or have changed your Twitter username, here’s what you need to do:
- Go to WP Admin
- On the left hand side under ‘Settings’ you’ll see ‘sharing’ – click this
- Scroll down until you see: ‘Twitter username to include in tweets when people share using the Twitter button’
- In the box alongside this enter your new Twitter username.
- Save changes
And you’re ready to go.
Tip: Make your Twitter Handle as close to your “Author” name (or Business Name) as possible so fans can easily follow you.
Here are links to ALL our Wednesday Wing Posts http://wp.me/P2Eu3u-7Lw
Reblogged this on meatdoesntgrowinmygarden.
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Ahh, thank you Alison, I was wondering how to add my Twitter handle to posts on my new site, and now I know 🙂
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You’re very welcome 🙂
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Reblogged this on Alison Williams Writing and commented:
My #twittertips post for @rosieamber1
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Reblogged this on Judith Barrow and commented:
A really useful post from Alison Williams, fellow team member of #RBRT. Changing your Twitter handle
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Thanks Alison. Since I ‘lost’ my first twitter name I’ve been wanting to alter the one I had to choose. Now, with your help, I’ll get a better one.
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You’re welcome Judith – it really is surprisingly simple to do.
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I set up my Twitter account long before I started my blog and I’ve been wondering whether to make changes.
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Reblogged this on Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life and commented:
Is your Twitter handle getting lost in the noise of the millions of Twitter users.. perhaps you might think of changing.. Alison Williams gives you a very easy to follow process both on Twitter and on WordPress.
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Great post, Alison (and thank goodness for tech-savvy kids!) 😉 I knew I wanted to use my name when choosing a twitter handle but it was taken so I chucked on the year I was born at the end (@ShelleyWilson72). The only trouble is some people think I’m actually 72 and had a lot of botox!!
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Don’t think you’d be able to produce that dazzling smile with botox!
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Ha ha very true 😉
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Thanks Shelley – my son does have his uses when he’s not in bed or eating everything in the fridge!
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SUCH a good idea for a post, Alison! I’ve told so many people, make sure you’re searchable – I’ve seen so many authors who make their Twitter name the name of their first book, which causes all sorts of problems. I decided on TerryTyler4 rather than Terry_Tyler because I thought the underscore would make for more wrong tagging, but I can imagine the difficulty when you have a very usual name. I think the answer with Twitter handles is to keep it simple and recognisable, not clever and mysterious, tempting though it is to choose a word that means something else to you.
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Sound advice, thanks Terry
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Thanks Terry – definitely best to keep it simple!
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I was lucky and was the first person to get the handle ‘@IckyTemperance’.
I’m sure there are a lot of disappointed folks out there that wanted this designation. 😉
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Ha ha I’m sure there were.
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Excellent tips as usual. Thank you. May I add one? I just learned this the other day and thought it would be helpful. When you use “&” to try to save space, Twitter automatically turns that into “&” so we’re actually using 5 characters rather than 1. So the tip is to use “+” instead.
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Oops. Not sure what happened there. WP changed the ampersand code. One more time. Twitter changes it into (ampersand symbol) amp (semi-colon).
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Thank you Sue, great tips.
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I stick to @carolJhedges because I have enough trouble remembering things at the best of times. Also my books etc are Carol Hedges…ditto my Amazon Account. Mind, I have flirted with @FiFiLaChatte …but it just isn’t me. The most confusing thing is when a writer with a pen name is on Twitter under their own name and the pen name. …still, as Shakespeare said: What’s in a name….?
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I can get confused with your capital “J” in the middle of your name, Carol, on Twitter, find myself checking before I post.
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Love @FiFiLaChatte! It would certainly make people take notice!
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Great advice, Alison. I didn’t realize it was so easy to change your Twitter handle. I’ll give that some thought because my handle has an underscore in it and I think the other Elizabeth Hein (a woman in WI) is sick of getting my tweets.
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Definitely food for thought.
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There’s definitely an Alison Williams somewhere who is heartily sick of me!
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Reblogged this on magscullingfordwomensfictionwriter.
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Many thanks, Alison.
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You’re welcome 🙂
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Great info – never dreamed it would be so easy to change a twitter handle.
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I know – I put it off because I thought it would be complicated!
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Thanks for sharing this great info. I wasn’t aware that by changing our twitter name we wouldn’t lose our followers. The only problem with it is if we have put our twitter link in our books, we’d also have to take off our books and change the links and redownload. 🙂
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A good point, probably depends on how much traffic you think you get from the link in a book and how much more you can get if your handle needs changing to reflect your current author platform. If it is changed on all current author platforms then a determined fan should easily find you.
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Thanks Rosie. This is something to consider as I’ve been thinking about changing my handle for over a year now. 🙂
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Glad it has been useful.
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That’s a really good point – I haven’t changed the twitter handle in my books, definitely something to think about.
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Thanks Alison. Thought I’d voice my concern, but Rosie makes a good point. 🙂
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Thanks so much for having me on your blog these past three weeks Rosie. I’ve really enjoyed writing and sharing these posts – and I’ve learnt a lot too 🙂
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Thank you for this. I’ve been wanting to change my Twitter name for a while, but didn’t want to go through the hassle of looking it up … most of the time, you can’t find clear instruction anyway. Now I have it. 🙂
@dino0726 from
FictionZeal – Impartial, Straightforward Fiction Book Reviews
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Fab! I look forward to the new you.
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Very useful to know! Thanks Alison. 😊
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