I recently ran into this specific problem with a new client. She had started a new company & I went to register her desired Twitter username only to discover it was already registered by someone else:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We discussed our options:

1. Find a new username & move on
2. Try to get the username we wanted from the user directly
3. Contact Twitter & see if we could secure the username based on the registered TM &/or lack of use policy
4. Pick a username, but still try to get the name we wanted. (After all this person had only tweeted once, had 18 followers, & hadn?t tweeted in 5 years)

We decided to go with Option #4 – attempt to get Twitter to give us the username we desired, but go ahead & setup an account.

The Process:

To start, I emailed Twitter based on the information posted on their website regarding activity & trademarks – To keep your account active, be sure to log in and Tweet (i.e., post an update) within 6 months of your last update. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity.

https://support.twitter.com/articles/15362-inactive-account-policy#
https://support.twitter.com/articles/18367-trademark-policy#

Good to know, right?

Twitter responded quickly, but we had to submit further documentation.

Things to consider when requesting a username:
Twitter prefers an email address with the brands email domain (ex. erin@sociallypowered.com not sociallypowered@gmail.com)
Be sure to have proper documentation showing you have authority? to act on the brand?s behalf. (i.e. signed statement from the brand, copy of your business card, valid government-issued photo ID)

We submitted documentation & about 3 weeks later received confirmation that the username was OURS!

SUCCESS!

Only thing left to do was respond with the username we recently setup. Easy!

Side note: I did attempt to contact the Twitter user on multiple occasions to see if they would release the name, but never got a response. I suppose that is probably common when someone hasn?t logged in or posted to Twitter in 5 years.

Good luck & have faith you will get the name!

If not, there are other options for choosing an appropriate Twitter username for your business, but I will save that for another blog post. Cheers!