Students and Corporate Social Media: Do College Students Care about Social Media Usernames?

Abstract

Young adults were the first adopters of social media and are still the prominent age group that uses social networking. Businesses have started to capitalize on this by creating a presence on many platforms, including Instagram and Twitter. As college students interact with these businesses on social media, how does the business’s social media username affect how college students perceive the business? Prior research from social media marketing articles, like Zarrello (2018), has inferred that the shorter, more attractive usernames are perceived as more professional for companies. A sample of college students were asked to rate the professionalism of a hypothetical company based on various usernames. Respondents preferred usernames containing the company’s name with no numbers or symbols, but not necessarily the shortest username.