How To Switch To the Right Twitter Username

I’ve recently become an avid Twitter user. I started using it unconvinced of its usefulness, but quickly realized how great an application it is for connecting people in a simple, unobtrusive, opt-in manner.

Once I started to make more use of Twitter, I decided I didn’t like my username. It had been davep3355, which is my personal screen name for a huge number of sites across the Internet. With Twitter, I wanted the account to be more branded to this blog, and to serve as an arm of this site instead of a personal outlet.

The thing was, I had already registered “the20life” on Twitter, intending to use it for- something different, apparently. That was my problem: I already had the name, but my followers were in the wrong place.

The only solution was to perform some cosmetic surgery, moving names around while leaving my tweeps unperturbed.

If you want to change to a name not already registered, it’s easy: just go to “Settings,” and change where it says “Username.” Once you change the name, make sure to retype your password to confirm. If you’re like me, though, and own multiple names but use the wrong one, here’s how to switch:

1. Go into your new account (for me “the20life”) and change its name by something minor (I made it “the_20life”).

Log out.

2. Log back in to your old account (“davep3355″) and change it to your desired username (“the20life”).

Log out.

3. Go back to your now obsolete account (“the_20life”, the one you changed from the one you want) and rename it with your old account name (davep3355)- this is to make sure links still go somewhere.

4. On your now-old account, put a link to your new Twitter account, for links to that username you forgot to delete.

Here’s how my davep3355 account looks now, after all this crazy switching:

Here’s the new one (which is actually the same account as always, just the new username):

When you do this, you’ll keep your followers and your Twitter flow- the only thing that will change is the username attached to your account.

One brief warning: in the time between changing “the20life” to “the_20life” and changing “davep3355″ to “the20life,” someone in theory could have jumped in and taken “the20life,” which was available for about 15 seconds. It’s incredibly unlikely- just make sure you do this whole process at once to ensure you get the username you wanted.

Some people have registered two account because they forgot about one, others because they forgot their password. Others registered a personal and professional account, and then decided less is more. Others still, they just simply couldn’t decide which account they wanted. Those like me realized that their Twitter name wasn’t all they had hoped for.

Regardless of why you want to switch your accounts without losing followers, it’s easy to do, and worth the few minutes of effort.

(via Rick Butts)

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