Cool tool: Username Check

Need a reason to set up some "placeholder" accounts on public social networks so no-one else takes them? Check this out. Plug in your organization's name or your own name and see where it's already taken in a whole ton of social spaces.

And what to do if your name is taken somewhere? That depends. Here's "maddiegrant" on Myspace. Ummm - yeah. It's a dog. (Dogs are sort of ok, but I am a cat person, for a start). That's annoying. But, do I really care? Do I want to hang out on Myspace? Personally, no. So this is no big deal to me - and if ever I find a reason to be on Myspace, I will just find another (SocialFishy?) way around it. So no big deal. But if I was really actively building my social brand, I might want to get in there and sign up with a placeholder.

If you know you have a presence "out there", this can also help you keep track of those you signed up for and haven't done anything with (which is totally ok, by the way, I do this all the time). I like to sign up for everything and anything, and then do nothing with it until I have a reason to, or it stands out from the crowd, or matures, or whatever.

Anyway, this tool does give you some idea of the multitude of social networks out there, and you can bet money that it doesn't cover them all, so don't be discouraged by that. Don't think you have to be everywhere. Fish where the fish are - figure out where you need to be to be able to interact with your audiences.