How To Create The Perfect Brand Name On Social Media And Beyond

Brand names are important. There’s no way around it. 

But how do you find one that’s right for your brand? And how do you create the right name to use on social media?

We try to answer these questions in our naming guide. We share tips and tricks you can use when you get stuck brainstorming name ideas for your brand. 

Social media channels are very important for every serious business. Make sure you’re using the right name that represents your brand. 

Get ready to learn everything you need to know about creating amazing brand names to use on social media and everywhere else. 

Get Your Social Media Handles

Social media handles are the usernames you use on social media. Let’s imagine you already know which name you want to use for your business. How do you go about registering your social media handles? 

There are too many social media platforms to go through. We recommend registering your brand on all the major ones – Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok. 

Registering your brand name on social media is easy if your name is still available as the exact match handle. But what to do if someone is already using the same name on social media channels? 

There are billions of social media users, and the chances are someone is already using your brand name as their social media handle. In fact, it’s extremely unlikely to find your brand name to be available as an exact match handle on all social media channels. 

Thankfully, there’s an easy solution to this common problem. 

Use Modifiers

Modifiers are short words we add at the beginning or at the end of the names to get available social media handles. They help us secure our spot on social media without changing our brand name. 

We’ll give you an example to better understand what we’re talking about. Let’s say you picked the name “Lean Squad” for your fitness business. But you learned that @LeanSquad is already taken. 

In that case, we suggest you add a word to your name to get available handles. Popular options include words like “the”, “try”, “get”, “official”. You handle would be @TheLeanSquad, @TryLeanSquad, @GetLeanSquad, @LeanSquadOfficial, or something like that. 

This way, you get to keep your name and use it on social media. The only thing you need to make sure of is that you’re not breaching any existing trademarks if the name is already registered on social media channels. 

Create Your Hashtags

The last thing you need to do is find the right hashtag to go with your brand on social media channels. 

Your own hashtag can help build your brand and increase brand awareness. We recommend you go for a unique hashtag that you can claim as your own. 

Popular brands often use very short slogans that work together with their brand names. You can even use your brand name as a hashtag if it’s short enough.

Why Are Brand Names And Social Media Handles So Important

Starting a business is hard. There are many things you need to take care of. You have to make sure you’re starting on the right foundations. The good thing is that you can optimize and change most things in your business as your business grows. Except for your name. 

While it is possible to change the name, that’s not something we recommend. Popular brands stick with their names for decades and even centuries. 

Most social media channels don’t let you change your usernames. This means you’re stuck with the handle you pick. 

This shows how important it is to pick the right name for your business. It’s the thing that will define you for the years to come. 

Your brand name is often the first thing potential customers hear about your brand. It’s the first thing they associate you with. The name usually comes before logos, designs, and customer experiences in the brand-customer interaction. 

A good name can help you get traction. It can help you get noticed in a crowded market. A good name can help you gain new customers and grow your brand. 

On the other hand, a bad name can leave you with bad publicity, which can lead to fewer clients and less revenue. 

It’s worth taking the time and putting in the work when picking your brand name for social media channels and the real world. We understand it’s a lot of work, but having a name you’re proud of is well worth the effort. 

What Makes A Good Name

We briefly touched on the difference between good and bad names. We can agree we all want good names. So, what exactly makes a brand name good?

Let’s look at some of the things we want in a brand name. 

Easy to Spell And Pronounce

We want our brand name to be easy to spell and pronounce. The last thing we want is to confuse our customers. We want them to know how to spell our brand when they hear about us, and we want them to know how to pronounce the name when they see our logo. 

This is especially important in international business when you have clients from different countries. 

Memorable

A good name should be memorable. We want people to remember our brand name from the first time they hear about us. A memorable name leaves a strong impression. It gets spread around, and it can potentially bring in new leads and customers. 

It’s much easier to get recommendations and referrals if you have a memorable brand name. 

Relevant

We want our name to be relevant to our business. That doesn’t mean it has to be descriptive. On the contrary, some of the best names in the world aren’t descriptive. Google, Apple, and Amazon are all relevant, but none of them is descriptive. 

We want the name to represent the business and show what the business stands for. 

Brand Name Types

Different branding agencies and business authors use different name type classifications. Most of them are similar to the classification we’ll use in this article. 

We’ll divide brand names into four distinct categories. 

• Descriptive names – These are the simplest names around. Descriptive names describe what the business does. Examples include brands like BestBuy, IBM, First American Bank, and similar. 
• Invented names – These names are either created from nothing, or they come from foreign root words. Invented names have no meaning and are often seen as arbitrary. Examples include brands like Ikea, Samsung, Xerox, and others. 
• Experiential names – These are the names that describe the experience customers have when interacting with the brand. Examples of popular brands include Oracle, Virgin, LinkedIn, and similar. 
• Evocative names – These are the names that represent the brand metaphorically. They focus on brand positioning rather than on brand products and services. Examples include Nike, Patagonia, Apple, and others. 

None of the name types is better than the rest. You have to go with the one that makes the most sense for your brand. 

Descriptive names generally do better in the B2B world, where first impressions aren’t as important as prices and supply chains. 

Invented, experiential, and evocative names are great options in the B2C world. You can probably get away with relatively crazy and wild names if you believe your customers would be amused with them. 

Practical Tips for Picking A Brand Name

Now that we’ve covered the theory behind brand names, let’s jump into practical tips that will help you find the best name for your brand. 

We gathered the tips we’re about to share with you from the top experts in the naming industry. We also sprinkled in our own knowledge to ensure we’re sharing everything we learned during the years we’ve been fine-tuning brand names. 

We recommend you use our social media name generator with the tips we gathered. This will ensure that you create the best possible name for your social media brand. 

Let’s start with the first tip you can use. 

Analyze Your Competitors

You have to analyze your competitors and the names they are using before you even start brainstorming suggestions. We recommend you create a spreadsheet and do a competitive landscape analysis of the names in your industry. 

You should be looking for trends and common themes. You will probably notice that your competitors use similar types of names. For example, it’s common to see a lot of invented names in the tech industry. 

You then have to decide if you want to stand out from the competitors or blend in. Pick a name that’s different then common names in your industry if you want to stand out. Pick a name that’s similar to the names of your competitors, if you want to blend in. 

Put Your Customers First

It doesn’t matter if you like the name you pick for your brand. Read this again – it doesn’t matter if you like the name of your brand. 

What matters is if your customers like your name. They are the ones that will interact with you, and they are the ones that will pay for your goods and services. 

We’re not saying to pick a name that you hate. We suggest you always analyze name candidates from your customers’ point of view. 

Pick a name that you know will sit well with them. This makes it more likely for them to connect with your brand. 

Avoid Boring Names

We already said that a good name makes people remember your brand. That’s why it’s so important you avoid plain and boring names. 

We usually recommend not to use names that are too descriptive. A descriptive name can easily become boring. Remember, a boring name turns your company into a boring brand. No one wants to interact with a boring brand. 

You can get feedback from friends, family, and potential customers before deciding on a name. Scratch the name and start over if they think the name is boring. 

Go Beyond Descriptive Names

Descriptive names are the easiest to create. They are also very likely to be boring, as we mentioned before. Instead, we suggest you look at your brand from a positioning point of view. 

Don’t describe the products and services you’re offering. Instead, look for words that represent your brand positioning. 

For example, do you want to be known as the brand that always delivers the fastest solution? Instead of including the word “fast” in the name, try to include things that represent speed. You can include words like  “rocket”, “launch”, “fly”. 

Names that aren’t descriptive are usually much more playful, energetic, and memorable. That’s what you want in a name. 

Use Rhymes and Alliterations

Another trick we use to make the names as memorable as possible is to use favorable word structures. Rhymes and alliterations make names sound very smooth and playful. The repetitive sound makes them very memorable. 

You can use online rhyming tools to search for the right words to use in the names. You can use thesauruses to find the right words for alliterations. 

You can test the names you create with your friends and potential customers. You probably have good name candidates if they provide positive feedback. 

Use Tools to Generate Ideas

We understand that naming is hard. You can quickly burn out and run out of ideas. We don’t have unlimited brainstorming capabilities in our heads. That’s why we recommend you use name generators to help you create new and interesting ideas. 

Our naming generators can help you create thousands of name ideas you can use for your brand. The generators are completely free to use. You can do as many searches as you want. 

They will even show you which names have available domains. This is important if you plan on building a website. 

Make sure you give our name generators a try. You can learn more about how to use them in our detailed guide. 

The Power of Social Media

Social media is one of the most powerful marketing channels in today’s world. Marketers use different platforms and content types to reach their target audience. 

With close to 5 billion users worldwide, social media represents an opportunity for all brands to find their customers. 

Businesses should invest time and money into building their online presence. You can reach people that are willing to interact with your brand and become your brand ambassadors. That is if you position and market your brand correctly. 

Everything we shared today shows that social media is worth exploring. It’s full of opportunities and content-hungry users. 

Make sure you start your social media journey on the right foot. Take your time picking the best name for your social media brand to ensure you’re making a great first impression. 

Conclusion

You now know how to create the best brand name to use on social media channels and everywhere else. 

You can use our tips whenever you feel stuck in the brainstorming process. Don’t forget to try our naming generators to help you create amazing brand names for your business. 

Good luck creating the next big brand.