Often times the Twitter handle that aligns perfectly with your brand or product is taken. For McGraw-Hill, I had to settle for @mcgrawhillcos because @mcgrawhill was taken…Grrrr. However, you may be able to claim an already reserved Twitter ID if your claim meets the following criteria:
- The user is blatantly impersonating you
- The user is misusing your trademark (pretending to be your company)
- The user has been inactive for 6 months or more
Criteria #3 is how I secured the Standard & Poor’s twitter ID – @standardpoors.
These are the steps I followed:
Step #1: Check Twitter’s inactive user policy and Trademark policy to make sure you meet their criteria.
Step #2: Once you are sure that the Twitter ID you want meets the criteria for takeover, raise a ticket.
Step #3: Choose the Trademark misuse form if you’re reporting an inactive account or an account that is impersonating your brand.
Step #4: Specify that you’re a trademark holder and would like to claim the username.
Step #5: Fill out the trademark issue form. You will need specific trademark information such as trademarked word, registration number, registration office.
Step #6: In the description, specify if the user has been inactive for more than 6 months. If the issue is brand or personal impersonation, specify how the user is doing this.
Step #7: Submit the claim. You will receive an email confirming your submission. The review process may take 2 weeks or more.
Twitter is constantly evolving and tweaking their process. If you go through this experience and have additional feedback, please add to the comments and I will update the post. Good luck!
