Your community name is the foundation of your brand. This is the first interaction your customers will have with your community and business. Follow our top tips on choosing a name that will work for you.
Choosing a name is an exciting first step to building a strong brand. Your community name helps prospective members immediately recognise your community as well as communicate the style and vibe of your community. Your community name should help to tell a story you’d be proud for others to hear.
There are a couple of different stages to reach the ultimate outcome:
Brainstorming
You can find inspiration for your community all around you. Scope our other communities and organisations that may be similar to yours, identify what you like or don’t like about their names. How do they make you feel? Are they easy to remember? Do they spark excitement in you?
You might consider using an abstract name which evokes a feeling, or a suggestive name that is a little more telling about what your members might expect if they sign up, or perhaps it’s an extension of your business name to keep a consistent image.
Verifying
Once you’ve arrived at a few options, it’s time to ensure that they clearly follow the below statements. My community name:
- Adheres to Disciple Community Rules.
- Does not contain any swearing or profanity.
- Respects and does not discriminate against religion, ethnicity, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, identity or disability.
- Does not include any suggestive messaging towards hate speech or threats of violence.
- Does not infringe upon any existing copyrighted or trademarked names (whether from an organisation, community or business). Use a Trademark Checker to help verify this;
- Does not share any personal information.
- Is creative, original and unique.
- Is memorable and easily identifiable.
Testing
This is an exciting phase which starts to give you an idea as to which name will best resonate with your desired audience. We recommend that you test two options at this level. Here are some ways to test your verified names:
- Ensure that you’ve spell checked your name, that it’s easy to pronounce and has the right accents and grammar.
- Check the Apple App and Google Play Stores as well as Google to ensure no names like yours exist, if you’re coming with an established name, consider how you can make variations of the name to retain its identity.
- Get some feedback from friends, family or pre-existing members who have a strong affiliation towards your brand. Ask them what kind of community they envision when they hear the name/s you’ve chosen.
- Throw out a few scenarios on social media to see how the public will respond, you could even create associated logos or imagery to assist in telling your brand story.
- Think about how global your name is. If you’re intending to reach prospect members all over the world, you may want to carry out some research to see what words or phrases might carry negative connotations.
Finalising
Now that you’ve completed the above 3 steps, you have likely arrived at your chosen name. Congratulations! It’s now time to set up your community and start marketing your brand.
We cannot wait to see what you do!