Using your real name online: Yes or No?

A question that often comes up in my mentoring sessions, and has cropped up again on the Warrior forum today is whether or not you should use your real name in your online businesses.

Some people are paranoid about privacy and are convinced that even hinting at their real name online will bring all kinds of stalkers, identity thieves and other undesirables running to their front doors.

So they hide behind silly nicknames or meaningless strings of characters in the belief that they are somehow protecting themselves.

Rarely is that successful. There have been one or two people who have managed to brand their nickname, but in all cases that I can remember their real name was in evidence as well.

Online marketing is very difficult and starting out with negative credibility is like trying to run a race while attached to the starting post by a bungee rope. Sooner or later it will drag you down.

I have always used my own name and have never had any problems as a result. In fact, here in Kickstart I share a whole lot more personal information than just my name! And apart from making me a lot of good friends, it hasn’t ever been a problem.

No stalkers, no crazed lunatics and only one groupie – Kim Standerline who tells everyone she wants to be the next Mrs Avis when I’ve done with the first one! Sorry Kim, but if Delia reads this, YOU might need to change your name!

Having said that, there ARE circumstances where using your real name can be a problem:

1. If your real name is already well known in a different arena. For example, a friend of mine is a high profile public figure who took up Internet marketing as a hobby some years ago. From the get go he used a pseudonym because he realized that people searching Google for his real name would just get confused if they came up with IM stuff.

2. I’ve known people who have ‘escaped’ from abusive relationships and who use pseudonyms online to avoid their ex spouse finding out where they now live. You can’t argue with that.

3. People who operate in several wildly different niches may want to use different names to keep the various sides of their business apart. I do this myself if I’m selling ebooks and reports in different fields because ‘Martin Avis’ is primarily known for Internet marketing and I don’t want to dilute that by having too many search engine results for different subjects.

4. Some employers are easily upset if they think that their employees are moonlighting, so in that case, a budding online entrepreneur might reasonably and sensibly use a pseudonym to avoid trouble with their boss.

5. It is conceivable that a person’s real name is too long or too difficult to read and pronounce for the market they are aiming at. In that case, it is often simply good practice to adopt a simpler version for recognition reasons.

In each of these cases it is reasonable and justifiable to use a false name. However, the key is that the false name should be recognizable as a ‘real’ name and not as some anonymous jumble of characters, or, sometimes worse, as a silly nickname. There is no credibility in these obvious fake names.

It is often said that people like to do business with people, and that is even more true online. There is so much suspicion already, why add to it by giving the impression you have something to hide?

What do you do and what are your thoughts on the matter? Comments are very welcome undear ANY name!

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