I have toyed with this idea before. Two things happened today that convinced me it's time to change my Twitter handle. First, I joined the Greater Louisville Inc. (GLI) small business committee and attended the inaugural meeting this morning. Both Twitter and LinkedIn were mentioned during the meeting. I returned to the office and began emailing the persons I had met. In my email, I wanted to include my Twitter and LinkedIn URLs. I realized that LouisvilleSoup has no meaning. I felt I needed to explain my brand which I should not have to.
Second, as I was checking email, I received an email from Audio-Tech Business Summaries that was promoting an interview with David Meerman Scott. The email stated, "He uses the middle name since there are quite a few famous David Scott's in the world and he was tired of being confused with some of them, as one is an astronaut that walked on the moon as commander of Apollo 15, another is a six-time Ironman Triathlete and one is even a US Congressman." I, too, have a very common name and compete with Tom Petty's lead guitarist, PGA golfer, and Geico CFO. I've always wanted to use my name, but every combination of Mike Campbell has been taken, except for MikeCampbellCPA.
My only reluctance to using CPA as differentiation from other Mike Campbell's was the CPA brand, itself. The AICPA and state societies have done an incredible job branding CPA. It is one of the most recognized brands. Unfortunately for me, the brand is typically associated with public accountants instead of those of us in private industry. Furthermore, I think people tend to think tax accountant, too. However, it is better explaining that I am a small business CFO in Louisville rather than explaining that Soup is a nickname based on my last name Campbell. When it comes to online personal branding, your name is your brand.
As I was typing this blog post, I decided to check where my name stands on Google's search engine. When I started blogging earlier this year, I was nowhere to be found with my name. Recently, I made it to the top of Google page 2. Tonight, I am on Google page 1! This accomplishes one of my primary goals for this blog. Our marketing director and I talk a lot about our company's online presence. As he states, "Content is King". I wanted to prove that even an individual who is neither a marketer nor a technology professional can utilize the free tools available to develop a solid online presence. It is sometimes a challenge convincing others of the benefit consistent content and I hope my little experiment proves a point.
That leads me to my next reason for changing my Twitter handle -- better search engine results. Karen Rubin wrote on her personal blog, "I knew I didn't stand a chance of getting the coveted #1 position as long as I didn't have a domain that was at least close to the search term." This concept, of having a URL that contains your key search terms is critical for search engine results, really stuck with me. She had the same issue I do in that MikeCampbell.com is already taken, and GoDaddy is holding MikeCampbellCPA.com hostage. I, too, was hesitant until she gave me the idea to claim http://mike-campbell-cpa.com.
Finally, this brings all my social networks together with a common userid. I had already claimed MikeCampbellCPA on LinkedIn and Facebook. I think it is much more professional than LouisvilleSoup. Now, how do I migrate my web site from LouisvilleSoup.com tohttp://mike-campbell-cpa.com without losing my page ranking?
