We ran into that when we started building the brand for the soon-to-launch TBD. It’s a popular acronym, as everyone knows, so securing that namespace in social media was quite challenging. Though we’ve been tweeting for nearly two months as @TBDDC, this week we finally acquired @TBD. This is how it went down.

We wanted @TBD from the start, but it was occupied by a private, dormant account with zeroes across the board – no followers, no follows and no tweets.

Obviously, the first step in this scenario is to try to contact the handle owner. From my own account, I requested to follow this user to see if they were checking their notifications. Either they weren’t checking or I was rejected, because I never heard back.

I also sent the user a couple of @ replies to see if they were even checking those. No response.

It was time to turn to Twitter.

When you want to take this next step, it’s important to note Twitter’s policies in relation to your situation.

The policies are different depending on whether or not the account is active, whether the user is actively impersonating your brand and whether or not you have a registered trademark on your name.

If someone is actively using the handle you want in accordance with the rules, there’s little Twitter can do, even if you have a trademark on the name.

From Twitter:

Where there is a clear intent to mislead others through the unauthorized use of a trademark, Twitter will suspend the account and notify the account holder.

When an account appears to be confusing users, but is not purposefully passing itself off as the brand/company/product, the account holder will be notified and given an opportunity to clear up any potential confusion, per the guidelines listed below.

Contacting the user directly is really your only hope to getting the name in this instance.

If you want to acquire the handle of an inactive account, as we did, it really helps to have a registered trademark on the name. We did not have our trademark registration info right away, but I still submitted  a ticket request to have the name released.

Once we got our trademark registration information, I filed another ticket, this time under the trademark policy. This time I filled out the required trademark info. To do this, our Twitter account had to be linked to an email address from our domain (an important thing to note if you have a business or blog without a URL yet). This was the final thing that pushed it over the top and got us @TBD.

If you don’t have a trademark registration, you may still have a chance, though note this important point in Twitter’s inactive username policy:

We are currently working to release all inactive usernames in bulk, but we do not have a set time frame for when this will take place. If a username you would like has been claimed by an account that seems inactive, you should consider selecting an available variation for your use on Twitter.

Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to submit a ticket request from your account to report the inactive name.

When and if you get a username opened up, you can easily change your Twitter handle to the new one without affecting your followers, lists or settings. You can do this from the Account tab of your account Settings.  In our case, Twitter rolled @TBDDC over to @TBD for us.

When you change your Twitter handle, you have to be vocal about the change. If you can do it before the changeover, tell your followers what’s coming. After the change, they’ll receive your tweets at the new handle, but they may not realize the difference and may send replies and DMs to your old handle. Tweet about the change and encourage retweets. It might not hurt to briefly re-secure your old handle and put up a message there about the new account.

Note: If you get a second handle for this purpose, be  good citizen and don’t name-squat. After a couple of weeks or so, if you aren’t going to use this account for something else, delete it and re-open the name.

But even if you don’t get the handle you want, you shouldn’t let it stop you from jumping into social media.   It wasn’t a deterrent for TBD – we were able to build a lot of buzz on @TBDDC before we got the new name (and we were prepared to have that name be permanent).

If you can’t get the username of your brand, think of a way to make your own version. Shorten it, add an adjective or adverb, tack on a location or do something entirely out-of-the-box. It really isn’t all in a name. It all depends on how you use the medium and how well you can promote it elsewhere.

Recently, The Cincinnati Enquirer (my employer) has been experimenting with ideas to boost the value of the printed newspaper. As an online employee my entire career, it’s been a bit out of my wheelhouse to focus on print, especially since the Enquirer’s previous claims to fame have been more in the digital side. Whether we like it or not, print still pays the bills, so our paper – and many papers – are willing to experiment if it means keeping the lights on.

The experiment started Feb. 7 when the Enquirer editors opted to hold the publication of our big Sunday showcase story until 5 p.m. on Sunday in order to to boost single-copy sales of the Sunday print edition. Prior to this, we had been posting the weekend blowouts online on Friday mornings or afternoons to give a “sneak peek” of sorts to our online readers.

The next week, Feb. 14, the experiment widened as the editors opted against publishing the Sunday centerpiece online at all. The print-only designation grew further this past weekend, Feb. 20, as one Sunday feature in every section of the newspaper was designated to be “print only”, with an icon denoting it as such in the paper.

On the Fridays before these experiments, we put a promo on the front of our site telling our online readers what they’d be missing online over the weekend and urging them to buy a newspaper. I don’t know what kind of reaction bubbled up to those on the print side, but I know I fielded a few reactions from readers looking for those stories online after the fact.

It could take awhile to determine the experiment’s success – or even figure out what success really means. My editor, Tom Callinan, said he expects the experimentation to become more focused and strategic over time. It could possibly accelerate toward a pay wall or premium model of some sort in the future.  I guess we’ll see what develops.

I realize this kind of print-only content plan is hardly unheard-of, as many papers (see this in the Minneapolis Star Tribune)  have been holding some or all publication from the web – and it’s pretty much the norm in the magazine publishing world.

I’m putting this out there because I’d like some feedback.

If you’re a Cincinnati-area reader: Did you notice this? What did you think? If you saw a story promoted only that was print-only that interested you, would it prompt you to seek out a Sunday paper?

If you’re an industry wonk (or wannabe wonk like me): What’s your reaction to this kind of experimentation? Do you know of other news sites that usually have everything online withholding their best stories from the web? More importantly, is this working to boost print sales?

If you don’t want to leave a comment, shoot me an email.

Editor’s Note:  I opted against editorializing on this experiment because (as you might imagine) I like getting a paycheck. While I have a lot of thoughts on this, I’ll save them for internal discussions where they might actually be useful.  You can probably figure out where I stand if you’ve ever read this blog before.

Ignoring the basis of her argument, let’s examine the excellent social media marketing at play here.

The entire tone of the piece is aimed at stoking the fires behind a largely-imagined competition between the National Enquirer and “mainstream media” that is widely-believed and argued by a certain corner of the political spectrum. Never mind that a vast majority of the Enquirer’s stories – think weight gains/losses, celeb rehab, who’s sleeping with who – are not of any interest to most “mainstream” news outlets anyway (but that’s besides the point).

Note the only quoted source in the story. Note the author in the comments of the story stoking that political fire. See her later the same day actively campaigning for the Enquirer getting the Pulitzer on Twitter. Note the National Enquirer, the same day, writing its own story about Miller’s story, praising her campaigning. Watch the Twitter stream reaction from said media competition theorists. Then see the link bait everywhere (you too, Mr. Romenesko).

The entire Issue-with-a-capital-I has been re-framed as Biased/Mainstream Media is preventing the Upstart/Misunderstood National Enquirer from getting a Pulitzer instead of asking if the story is worth journalism’s highest honor in the first place. Miller and the National Enquirer fed the beast in just the right ways to both get huge gains from their regular bases and a whole new crowd of big media haters who bit the competition bait.

It’s brilliant marketing and more media outlets should take note.

See, the National Enquirer has been using social media to change its brand’s reputation ever since the Edwards story started rolling out in 2007 and 2008. I don’t know how it started, but somehow they have managed to market themselves as a certain-kind-of-conservative’s go-to brand, along with Fox News, of  news that is perceived by fans as non-mainstream and unbiased in a world of mainstream and Left-leaning news outlets.

Every day I keep a cursory eye on a Twitter search for the word “enquirer” (to keep an eye out for mentions of my own newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer). At least a half-dozen times during my work day that stream will feature someone saying the National Enquirer is a more reliable source for news than “mainstream” news. You can’t really buy that kind of word-of-mouth love, especially after decades of having such a negative brand reputation.

We as an industry are generally awful about marketing ourselves and managing our brands. I’m not saying you need to actively wage a campaign like this to get noticed, but baby steps help a lot. Somewhere along the line, journalists got the notion that you can’t be good in this business unless everyone thinks your newspaper sucks and to hell with them if they don’t like it. I don’t think this works anymore.

Right now, when bloggers and users in social media denigrate our reporters or brands, the strategy is to keep quiet and don’t let them see you sweat. At worst, some outlets and media companies go further than that to actively alienate and discredit the detractors as a defensive maneuver, which never seems to go over well in the long run.

What we should be doing is contacting the writers, leaving comments and answering questions. We should defend our work and people when necessary and apologize when it’s warranted. We should go on record for interviews, return phone calls and emails – you know, do all those things that companies do when they want to be liked. Even when you don’t have to respond to criticism, we should be out there putting our best foot forward. Start by talking up your work and your paper’s efforts to local bloggers, your competition and your Twitter and Facebook friends. Involve the community in upcoming changes (eve the bad ones) and seek feedback whenever you can.

At the very least, take a cue from the Enquirer on this – you need to have fans somewhere. Find them, court them and keep them in the loop…then you can say to hell with everyone else.

At one point not all that long ago, my Facebook friends were all people who I may not have considered “friends” in real life, but they at least knew me in some fashion. Whether we worked together at a past paper or went on the same school at some point, we had some binding life experience that brought us together on the social network. At the very least, we’ve met at least once – or maybe we follow one another on Twitter.

Lately, my Facebook friends are making me feel like just another number – even the ones who I consider real friends in the “real life network”.

A great deal of them are marketers – by profession, hobby or as a transitional job following a journalism layoff. Somehow, this means our Facebook friendship is little more than that of a spammer to spamee these days.

Every single day a Facebook friend of mine suggests I fan some client or employer of theirs. It used to be, I’d get fan suggestions about bands we both loved in school or groups based around inside jokes from “Arrested Development”.

Now, those same friends are asking me to fan companies I would have no obvious interest in (like Mommy sites), that are way out of my geographic area and aren’t even meant for people in my field (like political groups).

These former friends likely got their jobs based on their number of Facebook friends – and they spam each and every one of us with these stupid invites. I must have missed the marketing conference where they instructed everyone to sell their high school classmates, college friends and family members to anyone who shows them the money.

Social networking is supposed to be about connecting with old friends and making new ones. It can involve marketing products, but it takes individualized recommendations to be anything but spam.

I tolerate a lot from my Facebook friends – borderline-pornographic pregnancy photos, updates from parties I wasn’t invited to and constantly-shifting relationship statuses – but I won’t tolerate spam anymore. I’m going to start unfriending anyone who uses me to spam for their employers and clients. That’s not why I joined Facebook.

Marketing friends, I offer you an easy solution: Take ten minutes to set up friends groups in Facebook.

Go to Friends in the top menu of your Facebook home page and click on All Friends. On that page, click Create New List. Why don’t you be honest and name it the spam list? Look over your friends and select those to whom you actually want to market your product or business. Make sure your mom, your friend who now lives across the country and I are not on it.

Now when you send messages or invites, you can type in the name of that list and send it just to those people.

And finally, if you can’t make this decision about who to spam and who not to spam, maybe you shouldn’t be on Facebook at all. At the very least, you should do your real friends and family a favor and remove  all of them from your lists. You aren’t a real friend, anyway.

• 5 Twitter Tools to Help You Manage Unfollowers | WebProNews – I can’t recommend Qwitter to anyone – it simply doesn’t work. Try these other services to keep an eye on who is unfollowing you – and possibly why.
• Paid Twitter Streams Are Here: Super Chirp – Is this the end of the world as we know it? Maybe. I’m not ruling out that a good Twitter stream is worth paying for – I just haven’t seen it yet.
• A new Colonel Tribune? – Daniel Honigman, the voice and creator of Colonel Tribune, is no longer with the Tribune. While I give him big congrats for getting out of the business on his talents in social media, I don’t think Colonel Tribune can really be the same with a new voice. We see this on a smaller scale when we change voices behind @cincienquirer – anyone can see the difference.
• The ‘branding’ of the journalist – Editors Weblog – I’m always bugging the reporters at my paper to market themselves as brands – particularly in the current job climate.
• Facebook | Recession Survivors – You’ll need to log into Facebook to see it, but this project is an excellent example of how news outlets can use the crowdsourcing tools built into Facebook to involve the community in a story. Click on the videos tab to see the fan videos that Facebook users have contributed to this project.
• To Tweet? To Twitter? The Final Word On Proper Twitter Lingo – The AP Stylebook has officially added Twitter and it’s words for usage (”to tweet” “to Twitter”). Who says we’re behind?
• Lead, Follow or Block: When to Use Twitter’s Block Function – A reporter today asked me about Twitter’s block function – when it should be used and what exactly it does. I found this post to be helpful in explaining the issue (the comments also add some insight).
• Twitter Dividends | Knight Digital Media Center Weblog – This was an interesting discussion amongst alums of the Knight Digital Media Center’s fellowship workshops about what sort of gains news organizations can or should expect from Twitter. Yours truly is part of this discussion – and I suggest the answer doesn’t lie in analytics.

• Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference? – Excellent overview of Facebook options. I frequently find myself trying to explain what the difference is and what each can be used for – but this does it very well.
• Industry Moves: NYT Creates ‘Social Media Editor’ Post | paidContent.org – The NYTimes seems to be the last ones to the party on social media. It will be interesting to see what they decide to do with this position.
• 10 Golden Rules of Social Media – These are aimed more at marketing types, but it never hurts to know the golden rules of the community you hope to join.

• Why journalists should learn to code (and why some shouldn’t bother) :: 10,000 Words – “Those who choose to adhere to long-standing forms of print or broadcast journalism shouldn’t fret, but know that there will come a time when basic coding will become an integral part of a journalist’s duties. It’s better to jump on the bandwagon now than to be left in the dust later on.”
• Seattle ‘P-I’ Sinks Without Print Boost – In their Top 30 Newspaper Sites for March, Editor & Publisher makes the point that online-only newspapers aren’t quite making it with audiences just yet. Do they need print to survive? That remains to be seen.
• How To Increase Your Chances of a Twitter Follow Back | John Chow dot Com – A lot of this is what I would consider no brainers, but worth a quick read anyway. Disregard what he says about a custom Twitter background, though. You don’t have to pay for a professional background to get followers – you can always make your own or use a free one.
• Overview: Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources | Pew Center – This Pew study outlines Americans’ relationships with news, news consumption trends and which media seem to be doing best. Key takeaway: News is still necessary to a lot of Americans…and without online news/blogs, newspapers would be in worse shape than they are right now.

• Twitter Analyzer – The best site for free Twitter analytics I’ve found so far. Check your rate of attracting followers, how active your followers are, who retweets you and examine your organization’s tweeting habits.
• Gain more Twitter followers for your news organization | Old Media, New Tricks – Great tips for news orgs from @ColonelTribune on how to follow the right people – and get more followers in return.
• Guide for laid-off journalists » Charles Apple – If it gets to this point, these are good tips to follow if you leave your job and find yourself back on the market.