In case you missed it, last weekend Facebook introduced their latest feature - personalised profile names. What's this mean? Now, instead of having your Facebook page being identified by your profile number you can use a more memorable name. For example, my Facebook page is now found at http://www.facebook.com/anthony.caruana instead of having some random string of numbers.

The new service was incredibly popular with the following stats coming in the day after the service launched:

• Over 200,000 usernames were assigned in the first 3 minutes
• Over 500,000 usernames were assigned in the first 15 minutes
• About 1 million usernames were assigned in the first hour
• As of Saturday morning PT, over 3 million usernames (both profiles and Pages) had been claimed

However, the whole thing got me thinking about how I want to be known online. Clearly, I chose my own name for Facebook but on Twitter I'm identified as "pocketmojo". I also have Twitter accounts for a new project I'm in the middle of, there's the Hydrapinion Twitter account and numerous other forums and online groups I'm involved in.

The problem is that I created all these things in an ad hoc way, without a clear personal branding strategy. For many people that's not a big deal. However, if you're in business this is a significant issue. Worse yet, what if someone already has taken the name you prefer? An example of this is the breakfast radio show I listen to each morning. The show is called The Morning Wake-Up but "morningwakeup" is already taken and "themorningwakeup" is too long. The program director has had to settle on damorningwakeup.

If you're in business and contemplating creating a social media presence (if you're not thinking about it you should be!) then think about names and start creating accounts for the names you want to use. Even create accounts for names you might use just in case.

Gratuitous Self Promotion
I'll be running a "Twitter for Business" seminar in Melbourne on the 21st of July. The seminar is being facilitated through Franklin Collins. If you're interested please email seminar@franklincollins.com.au to register your interest.