name Garcia (Ⅱ)

A couple of months ago I published the first part of this article (Link HERE) giving some clues as to how to help differentiation from surnames as common as Garcia, González, Rodriguez, Fernández, López…

I also promised a second part dedicated to dealing with this issue on social media, so there I go. There are places that allow duplicates and others that don't. Let's start with those who allow clones:

Facebook

Clones can coexist on Facebook, I mean, may exist 1.000 “Juan Garcia”. And that, Precisely, it's a problem when the name is very common. A logical solution is to place the 2nd surname, which reduces the number of clones. But since Facebook is a network of friends, here we can afford other more personal solutions:

• Use our most common nickname. For example, if your name is “Juan Garcia” But your friends call you “Nito”, don't hesitate, sign up for Facebook as a “Nito Garcia”.
• Use our personal brand. If you know us as “the Marilyn of Cuenca”, and we like the brand, Go ahead, Why cut yourself?. Let's think we can have the profile closed, banned for headhunters and people who might not understand the reasons for such a name.

Linkedin

Like Facebook, several people with identical names and surnames can live together in this professional network. Any advice:

• Watch with accents, Linkedin is sensitive to them. In other words, if you write Perez and someone looks for ignoring the accent, won't find you. Watch out for that..
• If you have two first names or two last names, don't hesitate to use them, as long as others know.
• Unlike Facebook, avoid diminutives and nicknames that could compromise you, unless you go into show business or want to bet head-on to create a coherent brand in all media.
• Linkedin calls for more seriousness, and there we must put the name that we would place, For example, on a cv.
• But there are resources to differentiate. Some alumni of IESE Business School, For example, use after their name a parenthesis of the type (IESE UNAV on).
• Other people “Slip” your email in the name, type Juan Perez Garcia (jpgarcia_z@gmail.com), which makes them easier to find.
• At last, there are SEO techniques to make your name the first on the list. Ask Luis Alvarez Emilio, a crack in the matter.

And now let's review some of the places that don't support clones:

Youtube, Flickr, Twitter, Skype, Gmail, Hotmail…

In these places, the first one that arrives gets the name. It's like web domains. To sharpen the problem, they also give us a string of characters, which prevents us from placing a first and two surnames. What do we do?

• Imagination to power, but with a certain order and coherence. If we decide to call ourselves JPerez321X, let's try to make that our name on all these networks that don't support clone.
• It wouldn't hurt if JPerez321X made some sense, a story that makes it easier for those who seek us to find us. I do not recommend using the year of birth, it's too easy to “Hack”.
• Username is one thing, but it should always be attached to our real name. Twitter, For example, would allow a JPerez321X username associated with Juan Pérez García.
• Another formula is to use _ the underscore, type juan_perez_garcia or JPerez_Garcia. Let's remember that these networks do not support spaces in usernames.
• What never, Never, we have to do is to join our name with that of the company we work on. Recently journalist Ana Pastor was fired from TVE. His Twitter profile was AnaPastor_RTVE (or something.), so you've had to give it up and start over. Let's remember that our work is always temporary, that lifelong employment does not exist. Our brand is us, not the company we work in.

This is how far we've come. If you have any interesting case of “Naming” you want to send me, we could raise a third of this article. Thanks to tod@s.

García Lorca image by Shutterstock.com

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Guillem Recolons

Convinced that everything leaves a mark, I help companies better connect with their stakeholders through personal branding programs (personal brand management) and employee advocacy (programs of branded internal ambassadors).

Socio of Soymimarca's Integra Personal Branding, Brand Directory of Omnia Branding, I also collaborate with Ponte en Valor, Brandergizers, MoreThanLaw, Noema Consulting and Quifer Consultores.

I participate in various programs at IESE, ISDI and EAE, among others. Collegiate advertising, Master in Marketing. Humanities Degree Student.

My advertising DNA comes from 20 years in agencies: Time/BBDO, J.W.T., Bassat Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi, Altraforma and TVLowCost among others.

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