Get Social Media Savvy with @CyFairJoel: Social Visablity

Whenever I’m helping someone set up their social media accounts, I stress the importance of selecting a username. Let’s call it the “three Cs” of social visibility.


Be Clear. Be Concise. Be Consistent.

Be Clear

Make it easy for people to find you. If you’re currently using your Novell user ID, I recommend switching to something more social-friendly. Something like @MrsJones5th tells me quite a bit about you (your name and grade level you teach), and you can let your bio fill in the missing pieces (school, interests, etc.).


Most importantly, I can remember that username a lot easier than I could some random variation of characters, underscores and numbers when I’m looking to tag you in a post.

Be Concise

Speaking of underscores – try to avoid them. The great thing about Twitter and Instagram is how quickly you can distribute content to a potentially large audience. Strange as it sounds, the extra step it takes to tap your secondary keyboard to find the underscore key can be an annoyance when it takes an extra second or two to access it.


Furthermore, Twitter gives you 15 characters for a username, but you don’t necessarily need to use them all. Keep in mind that whenever someone is mentioning you in a post, your username characters will count against the 140 they get in a Tweet.

Be Consistent

If you have a Twitter, Instagram and Facebook account, try to keep them all the same. Anyone who wants to find the district account can do so easily by searching “cyfairisd” in any of those formats or following any of those medium’s URLs with /cyfairisd in a web browser.


This continues the theme of making it easy to find you. The less hassle we create for potential followers, the more we can build, and the broader reach we can attain.

Have any more tips you think would be helpful? Hit me up!

~ @CyFairJoel