Facebook wants it and Google+ does as well. They want you to use your real name for your account with understandable reasonings. Just as understandable as are the reasons users have to not oblige.

It could just work though..

Imagine John. John is a normal guy and as such he is active in several social networks.

He is John S. Smith on his business network and John Smith on Facebook. He is John on a charity network where he tries to help his community and again on Facebook he is JohnXXX the guitarist of an upcoming rock band.

In the real world he is also referred to as husband, dad or son.

John doesn’t want his parents and family to know too much about his Facebook activities as JohnXXX as he want to appear cool and dangerous and of course he doesn’t like his employer and colleagues to know all about the parties he has with his friends and he doesn’t want to brag about his charity work too much which would clearly conflict with his rockstar image anyway.

The real name policy however makes it hard for him to maintain several profiles per network as there is only so much variation possible with your real name..

The key concept here is about roles.

How about having a real name profile for which you can configure several roles like private life, professional, charity worker or rockstar?

You could maintain different names for each and you could configure that your private life shall never interact with your professional one and your charity work should not expose your email and address.

This way you could maintain several identities with only a single login and the networks would still be able to profile you.

Facebook, Google+. You’re welcome.

Facebook · Google+ · social media

<< International licensing and translation effords

4 social media strategies for publishing brands >>