Got some irons in the fire? Then it's time to brand your social media properties.

Your new start up has passed the concept and planning stages and you are excited and energized and looking to launch, When is the time to engage your online marketing? Don't wait until you are turning over the open sign to begin the blogging and public relations push.

As soon as you have a name for your venture or your new product, you want to brand your presence on the social media sites as well as your own blog and of course your website. Your accounts should be easily recognized as your own property and even though no-one may ever type your branded YouTube,con URL into an address bar, it will appear when customers are visiting your page on the site. Your branded social media sites are also neater and less unwieldy when you are creating links and registering analytics.

There are the top 7 social media sites, then there is everybody else, really. If nowhere else, create:

Twitter.com/youryourbrandname

YouTube.com/yourbrandname

Facebook.com/yourbrandname

LinkedIn.com/yourbrandname

Flickr.com/yourbrandname

instgram.com/yourbrandname

vimeo.com/yourbrandname

There is a chance that yourbrandname will be taken already so be prepared to modify. Using relevant abbreviations are easy to incorporate without watering down your meaning. Adding a number is not always the best but extending the name can help. I'll be setting up my brand names this week an expect that I may need to take some of my own advice. I'll use "PUBLICITA" first, all caps is my preference, then PUBLICITAONLINEMARKETING, if necessary. Then a combination of PUBLCITA and the platform name. I have already scooped www.facebook.com/publicita (YES!) but expect that on LinkedIn I may need to resort to www.linkedin.com/publicitalinked or a variation. While I am at it I may just register www. publicitablog.ca to go along with www.publicita.ca.

In any case, I am ready to open my start-up and branding my social media spaces is number one on my list for online marketing.