Many people and businesses are frustrated because they find it difficult to gain control of their brand name on YouTube. In reality, it’s usually rather easy to claim your own brand name on YouTube, once you know what to do. Everything required to gain control of a relevant corporate username on YouTube within 10 minutes can be found below.

If you do not have access to the relevant username it can be very frustrating for many corporations, and has a negative impact on the brand name.

SEO Specialist provides examples of 10 major airlines which can claim back their YouTube names (YouTube.com/YourName) with very little work involved. But first, why is usernames an issue?

User names are not like birth certificates, they are not given to users or companies automatically. A corporation must apply for a username to be able to get it. Do you think YouTube release inactive username? Well, they don’t. You have to follow the instructions below and contact YouTube, doing a trademark claim, in order to get the username you want.

Popular usernames are in high demand due to factors such as recognition, type in traffic and the fact they are memorable.

Many different companies might fight for the same name. In fact, many company names are similar and perhaps the jewellery brand, the radio station, craft retailer and the Japanese TV channel with the same name would all deserve to use pandora as their username (ie: YouTube.com/user/Pandora).

If a username is taken, but never used, it can be referred to as username cyber squatting. The chances of getting cyber squatters usernames increase over time if they are hold inactive.

Why confusing names can hurt your brand’s reputation

Many businesses choose to not operate in social media at all due to the fact that somebody took their username. Others decide to become active in social media under the second best username available. But is second best good enough?

“Our SEO specialists believe it’s better to be active in social media with an alternative username, rather than not being there at all, say Markus Jalmerot, chief executive of SEO Specialist Limited. He continues: “But using the second best name on YouTube can seriously hurt the brand perception. A company might look unprofessional, weak and less trustworthy without the relevant name on YouTube”.

What’s even worse is that brand names might be devalued by the negative exposure. Imagine if the current owner of a username will put up inappropriate videos, allow spam on the wall or make it look really bad. People might of course believe they arrived at the wrong place, but will their trust in the major brand also decrease?

It’s therefore advised to follow the steps below how to get a deserved YouTube username for free.

3 simple steps to claim your YouTube name

It only takes a few minutes of your time to get a deserved corporate YouTube name. Here is what to do:

1. Go to the current profile
Start going to the current profile, such as http://www.youtube.com/YourName/
If working with social media for Ryan Air, go to http://www.youtube.com/RyanAir/. (No, I don’t link to YouTube username squatters).

2. Look out for activity
There is two things to look out for:
-Any activity in the last 6 months?
-Any videos uploaded?
-Is the user actively participating in watching or commenting on videos or channels?

If the user haven’t logged in to YouTube for at least six months and never uploaded any video content, chances of getting through a username claim on YouTube increase heavily.

3. Fill out YouTube username claim form
Even if you don’t have a trademark, you can claim a YouTube name based on the fact that it’s your company name and there has been no activity in over 6 months for the current user.

The documents to be filled out online is called a ‘trademark infringement form’.

Go here and choose ‘Trademark issue with a username’.

Note: You must be signed in to your Google account when doing this.

10 airlines without their deserved YouTube names

Many major brands could easily get their rightfully deserved YouTube name, due to inactivity and/or trademark issues. Here comes a few:
-Air China
-Air France
-Aer Lingus
-EasyJet
-Emirates
-Etihad Airways
-RyanAir
-SpanAir
-Thai Airways
-WizzAir

How did SEO Specialist get their YouTube name?

SEO Specialist take user names seriously and just succeeded to get their proper name on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/user/seospecialist.

It took us less than 10 minutues to read through the legal text, fill a complaint and after less than 3 weeks our company received an email from YouTube saying we
now have access to our YouTube user name. All in our London SEO company was very pleased with the news and thought the story could be shared, so others can gain the same benefits.

When filing a claim with YouTube, you only have space for about 40 words to fill out. Here is what I wrote:

“Dear YouTube, We find the current username seospecialist could mislead others to believe it’s us (SEO Specialist Limited). The user has been inactive for over 2 years and is probably a username squatter (no activity, no uploaded videos etc)”.

Is you username taken on YouTube? Have you tried the steps above to claim it?