An inactive social media username doesn’t necessarily mean the account is abandoned. It simply means that whoever owns that account isn’t using it in an outward fashion. These accounts include profiles browsing the social media channel online, placeholder accounts for future businesses, or even bot accounts that no one monitors. For an interested individual, claiming inactive social media usernames can be a complex process, one that’s not always successful. That’s not to say you can’t get an inactive username, but it will often require a few steps to try and secure the account.
Determine Your Social Media Username
When you’re in the brainstorming process, coming up with a few variations of your social media handles is the easiest option to avoid inactive usernames. You can establish several different names and then run them through a social media username checker. This website will highlight the various social media channels and the current registrations of your requested name. Results will typically show as available, registered, or undetermined. Unless you’re a major corporation with trademarks and established copyrights, avoid any username that is taken across multiple platforms.
Ask the individual for the username
Having an identical name across all channels is important when you’re trying to establish an online brand and reputation. It helps your customers and viewers find your content and builds authority. If an individual has your username on one or two platforms (while you hold the usernames across all other websites and domains), consider asking them if they’d be willing to change it. This is particularly useful for people who hold social media handles without a following. Although not everyone will be agreeable, it never hurts to ask ahead of time.
Offer to pay for the social media name
This method of acquiring a username is potentially a costly move but can ultimately get you what you want – the username of your choice. Occasionally, an individual will make a Facebook page, Instagram profile, or Twitter account with the thought of creating a brand down the road. Over time, these goals may change, or the profile may become inactive. For these individuals, purchasing the profile may cost a few hundred dollars. If the username is currently active, has a following, or is attached to a business, it’s going to cost you considerably more.
That’s because a business isn’t just changing their username; they have to change their marketing materials, website information, contact details, and all other brandings to accommodate your request. They’re also going to connect your request to their established following. If a Facebook page currently has 850,000 followers, selling the page to your company could potentially cost them their following too. How? Every follower on that page has established a connection with that owner. Changing the name (even without giving up the page) can damage that reputation.
A business is going to account for that potential loss in its selling price. Some companies will charge approximately five times the current earning potential from the social media platform. That means, if a company is currently making one million dollars a year in income from Facebook, you can expect to pay five million dollars to buy the page.
Petitioning the Social Media Platform for Ownership
A trademark identifies a specific company, its goods and services, or products from the competition. These are often geographically restricted and don’t prevent other people from using the particular words or phrases you’ve claimed. Business owners can apply for a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which can approve within 12 to 18 months. There is no guarantee that your brand will be approved due to extensive legal reasons.
Companies with a registered trademark can appeal to social media platforms, asking for ownership of the specific page. Both the requesting company (that’s you) and the current owner will be given a chance to claim ownership through documentation. Unfortunately, trademarks only apply to companies within the US. If there’s a registered business with the same name in Europe, you’ll likely lose your petition.
Accounts You Can’t Claim on Social Media
In certain situations, the account is simply unavailable for the public to use. These account names are often pages or companies that have been banned from use, whether breaching the terms of service, causing damages through malware programs (through spam, viruses, or hacking), or for other legal reasons. If the username you want is a blocked name, you’ll need to find another variation for your profile. This variation can include slight variations of the name, different punctuation throughout the username, or another combination of keywords.
Although it may be frustrating having to source another username when the banned account would work perfectly, the last thing you want is to be connected with a company that distributed malware or p*rn unsuspectingly. Many banned social media handles are also black-listed from popular search engine results too, meaning the username will never show on search engines. When you’re building online presence, the last thing you want is to be invisible on Google.