I came across an interesting article this morning. I honestly think that business people should pay close attention to this one.

Remember a few years back when the term “cyber-sqautter” came into being? It related to people who registered domain names (like acme.com) even though they had no relationship to the company or person? And then they tried to sell the names to the actual company, or brand owner, at a hefty profit.

Well, it’s happening again, in an entirely new medium.

The squatting target this time is Twitter. Twitter of course is a social media platform, where people (or companies) can provide brief updates on what they’re doing, or what’s going on in their world. It’s a free service that many companies (CPG Systems included) use to maintain a connection to potential clients or customers, and to keep that brand awareness alive.

A basic tenet of marketing of course is brand consistency. It can sometimes be a challenge to keep it going across multiple platforms. But it gets even harder if you can’t claim your own name in the social media space.

What happens if, for example, you’re a major car manufacturer whose company name has the initials G-M? And then the marketing department wakes up one day and says “Gee, this social media thing might be a good idea… let’s go register at socialmedia website. And you get there and the name has already been scooped up by someone. What does this do to your brand recognition?

This is exactly what’s happening with a bunch of major companies. And the article I mentioned has some of the gory details of which companies are running into a brick wall in getting their own names to market with.

Of course, for smaller companies, maintaining brand recognition is even more critical. Being known, and being recognized are a vital part of the overall marketing strategy for any small company. So how do you protect your business interest?

Well, the first, and easiest way is to go out and register your own name in as many places as possible. But with so many social media outlets, how do you know where to begin? I’d start with a website like knowem.com. It let’s you check to see if your common brand name is available on a variety of social websites. Better still, it also breaks those sites down into categories, so you can decide for yourself which segment you want to focus on, or which one your target market may be most likely to visit (like video, news, or health).

So get to it… start registering to protect your name. And keep your brand identity in check