Like I mentioned in the email we’ve been using @TheBloggersBull as the Twitter address for the site (for about the last 3 months).
True, it represents the first 15 characters of The Bloggers Bulletin and it may be somewhat amusing to say or hear for some (actually that “some” probably represents just me; and any amusement I got from it lasted about 5 minutes, 3 months ago). But it doesn’t seem like it represents the content of the site very well.
After mentioning the address a few times to other attendees at the 140 Conference in LA, I kind of started to get the impression that maybe we needed a different Twitter address (of course, maybe I didn’t like the address myself at that point and my reticence was osmotically conveyed to fellow attendees somehow). 
So, recently, I sent out 6 possible options for a new address to all of us a couple of days ago:
- @thebloggersbltn
- @thebloggersb
- @bloggerbulletin
- @bloggerbltn
- @bloggersb
- @theblogbulletin.
About 25% of Contributors have replied so far.
8 favored @bloggerbulletin as there first or second choice (2 of the 8 a version with an “s” after blogger — which would make 16 characters, which would have been too long, unfortunately) for the new Twitter address vs. the 5 alternative choices. And, certainly, @bloggerbulletin is “@” + 15 characters (the current max) long and it does seem to help brand the site more.
So, it seems like a done deal if the response from 25% of Contributors is any leading indicator of the opinion of all Contributors. I therefore established an account for @bloggerbulletin and it’s ready to go.
- But what about the Retweet factor?
Three of us leaned towards @bloggersb citing the retweet factor. It’s an address not so great at helping brand The Bloggers’ Bulletin any better (Twitter Users: ”Oh yeah, @bloggersb, that’s obviously the Twitter address for Bloggers’ Books…or, actually, no, it’s for that new Bloggers’ Beer, right? OK, follow ‘em if it’s for Bloggers’ Beer“). But the retweeting factor was something I had in mind going in to selecting a new address and I was leaning towards @bloggersb myself.
Since the address is 9 characters long, when it’s ReTweeted, only “@” plus another 9 characters intrude on the limited 140 character real estate in the ReTweeted message. Also, there’s less work involved with any manual text entry and so forth.
Anyway, just to be on the safe side, I arranged 5 Twitter accounts so we could keep our options open for the time-being:
- @bloggerbulletin
- @bloggersb
- @blogbulletin
- @theblogbulletin
- @thebloggersbltn
I have the hosting account for The Bloggers’ Bulletin, so I just arranged new email addresses specifically for each Twitter account I created. Yes, it may seem overkill, but it also seems necessary if you are to show a respect of sorts for the potential of others out there besides us who might have the same Twitter addresses in mind.
So, chalk this post up as one designed to reduce pressure on you or your business: if you are arranging a Twitter address for somebody or something besides yourself, know that you may hedge your bets by creating multiple Twitter accounts.
