Hey! Why is someone using my old Twitter name?!

A lot of Canadian Members of Parliament are about to get a nasty Twitter surprise after the election on May 2nd. Not just that they may have been voted out, but that they lost their Twitter name they used before the election was called at the end of March.

Here’s the problem.

Many MPs used the term “MP” or “Min” or “Minister” in their Twitter names. During election times, these folks cannot refer to themselves as Members of Parliament so this may extend over to their social media world. As such many MPs who had titles in their Twitter name changed to something else.

For example James Moore from Port Coquitlam – Coquitlam – Port Moody used the Twitter name @mpjamesmoore for the last few years. Once the election was called he changed to @JamesMoore_org. A good choice as he keeps his name present and pushes his website which just happens to be at JamesMoore.org. I am of course guessing he was influenced in his new choice of Twitter name by my awesomeness (@davedotca).

So, James made this name change and all his followers, past Tweets, Direct Messages etc. attached to his new name automatically. How did this happen? Well, I hope I am not talking too techy here but it is magic. (Note to self, may want to spell this out later after a vicious Rockband session)

But….here’s the catch! James’ former Twitter name (@mpjamesmoore) is now put back into the list of available names. This means someone else could take that Twitter name, pretend to be James and confuse the masses. The political term for “confuse the masses” is of course “campaigning”.

The new owner of the Twitter name would not have access to past Tweets, Direct Messages, followers, etc. that James once had (remember the magic that occurred earlier when James changed his Twitter name?) but the new owner could still wreak some havoc. The political term for “wreak havoc” is of course “govern”.

So surely all MPs protected their old Twitter identities…right? Wrong. I found several MPs who changed their Twitter identity and left available their old name. I even went so far as to register three  former MP Twitter handles from three of the major Federal political parties. I will not name the elected officials so as to protect the horrible shame these folks must feel and will totally pass back over the name once I am made a Senator. LOL – totally kidding-ish.

To be clear – I notified all three Parties yesterday at around noon so they could fix this problem before I published this piece.  Two of the three wrote back to thank me for giving them the information.

So, are you an MP in this Federal election and want to protect your old Twitter identity? Well here goes:

First two pre-protection steps:

1) Hire Dave.ca Communications Inc. via a non-tendered, sealed, closed bidding process / contract.

2) DO NOT put your title in your Twitter name or other social media identities. As much as you think you will be an elected official for the rest of your life the likelihood is you will not.

Now to protect your former Twitter identity – hopefully this is done BEFORE you register your new Twitter name but if not, you can still do and hopefully no one has pinched your name:

1) Most of you have a website so have your web guru create an email address like oldtwittername@websitename.ca which forwards to your own / current email address. The reason for this is that Twitter only allows one account per email address. Write down this “new” email address so you do not forget because we will need this info in a bit.

2) Log in to your Twitter account that has your MP or Minister title.

3) Click on your Twitter name in the top right corner and select SETTINGS.

4) In the USERNAME box, change the username to whatever your would like to use as your new Twitter name. Your real name, your website address, etc. This should be meaningful and intuitively connect to you / your brand without using your political title.  BTW – write down your “old” Twitter name so you do not forget because we will need that name in a bit.

5) Once you have typed in your new name click on some of the white space just outside the box where you typed in your new name. The message will now say either “Username has already been taken” which means you have to try again, or the message “Available” will appear which means you can move on to the next step.

6) There is no six (Monty Python reference – politicians LOVE this stuff).

7) Scroll down and click SAVE. You will have to enter in your password so go ahead.

8 ) Click on your Twitter name in the top right then click SIGN OUT.

9) You will be at the Twitter homepage, click the SIGN UP button.

10) Fill out the form and for USERNAME enter your old Twitter name which you wrote down in step 4 and for EMAIL enter the email address your web guru setup for you in step 1.  Hopefully in the 2 minutes or so it took to complete these steps you will still be able to register your old Twitter name. If when you enter the old name the system says “Username has already been taken”, well, you’re SOL (which of course mean, “Shucks, Out of Luck”). If it says, “Available” then click the CREATE MY ACCOUNT button at the bottom.

11) An email will be sent to you to confirm this new account. Check your email, follow the instructions, then log out of your Twitter account.

12) Done!

You have now secured your old Twitter name so no one else can use, saved yourself some HUGE embarrassment, switched over to your new Twitter name and are well on the road to re-election and signing that services contract with Dave.ca.