What’s in a Twitter name?
Plenty, it turns out.
As more and more corporations and celebrities look to acquire some of the most coveted real estate in social media circles — prime Twitter handles like @rob or @andy — a small but growing industry has been born: the Twitter handle adviser.
As the micro-blogging company grows past the 200 million active- users mark and becomes a prime pop culture influencer, more companies and individuals are turning to these Twitter fixers to help them acquire snappy, easy-to-remember handles.
At JPMorgan Chase, which was interested in getting the @chase handle, an offer of a five-figure payout was offered to the handle’s then-owner, sources said.
Chase, which denies it sanctioned the payout, hired an Internet adviser who reached out to the user behind @chase when it recently wanted to buy the handle. The negotiator approached the owner, Chase Giunta, with a $20,000 offer, according to emails read by The Post that showed the exchange.
Giunta missed out on a payday because he didn’t want to violate Twitter policies, he told The Post. Still, Twitter wound up working with the bank to hand over the name based on alleged trademark issues that Giunta was powerless to fight, he said.
Twitter rules bar the buying and selling of handles. Despite that, people and companies will negotiate — quietly but aggressively — to trade for a simple handle, that is, one that doesn’t require “the real” or underscores or a number that shows you are the umpteenth user under that name.
“Companies who are trying to get a hand on their usernames are being quite creative,” said Jean-Jacques Dahan, founder of UK-based Zeusmark Consulting Group. “It is impossible to know how common it is that Twitter-handle deals are made but I do assume that it is a growing marketplace.”
A brand like Oreo, which went viral with a tweet during last Super Bowl’s blackout, showed the power of the service, becoming a marketing sensation for free on a night when companies paid millions of dollars to advertise.
Twitter, which is set to become a public company probably before the end of the year, is telling investors the story of this marketing phenomenon.
One of the first steps for any brand to tackle Twitter is getting the rights to the username with which it is associated, and often it means locking up similar usernames to eliminate confusion.
“A social media username strategy is about brand protection and cannot be solved by one simple username,” Dahan said. “One username is fine, but it will drown next to a long list of similar names or other look-a-likes.”
Andy Cohen, a Bravo network TV personality, recently switched his Twitter name from @bravoandy to simply @andy.
It was unclear how he secured the first name username. Calls to Bravo for comment were not returned. Bethenny Frankel, another Bravo personality and a “Real Housewife” star, has the @bethenny handle.
When Cohen made the Twitter switch, which was a recent move according to sources, he also took his million-plus followers to the new name.
The old name @bravoandy is now a locked account and out of use, a tactic to keep the once-popular feed from squatters.
That’s a common Twitter strategy, and searches for big celebrity names on the site show that some of the biggest stars keep out-of-use Twitter names that could be gobbled up by fakers behind a cyberwall.
Not just brands but people, like MTV reality star Rob Dyrdek want the coolest first-name handles.
Dyrdek messaged Rob Bertholf to offer gifts like a new watch to takeover @rob.
Bertholf gets offers like that all the time from people who just want the first-name identifier, and he once was tempted with a $25,000 check, Bertholf, a 34-year-old software developer in Hawaii, told The Post.
“It’s an ego thing,” Bertholf said. “Everybody wants the shorter one, the one that shows they are early adopters, the one they can’t get.”