I joined Twitter in October of 07 not really knowing what it had in store for me. Well one thing led to another and as I reached my 1000 follower milestone I began to regret my original naming decision. Then I received a tweet from Ari Herzog concerning my Twitter name and that was it, I had to change.
Here is how I changed my Twitter name without losing any followers.
First, make the name change. You can change your Twitter name at any time on the ‘settings’ page at Twitter.com.
Second, create a new account with your old Twitter name. You don’t have to do much with this account. Maybe add a URL to your new twitter account and post a single tweet notifying people that your name has changed.
You won’t lose any of your followers and they’ll all see the name change as their Twitter clients refresh.
Notes
I seem to have missed a few @replys right after the switch. Most Twitter apps won’t update your existing tweets with your new name until they are restarted. As a result you are at risk of getting some @replys sent to your old account. This could also happen with people you talk to regularly. Be sure to continue to monitor your old account so you can catch missed replies and update your follower of the name change.
I also made it a point to run across all of the social networks that list my Twitter handle and update them. This included sites like MyBlogLog, FriendFeed assorted ning sites, etc. It may be awhile before my new Twitter account shows up on Google for Jon Bishop.
Don’t forget to update your Twitter link on your blog if you have one.
My TwitterGrade went down .9 points … oh well. I also had duplicate listings for awhile but this was solved by retrieving an updated grade for the old account. Other Twitter stats sites are showing decreased numbers but I’m sure this will even out over time.