“A” Dilemma of Epic Proportions
Have you ever considered the advantages and disadvantages of having a name that starts with an “A”?? In the social media world, having an A name is profound.
Ex: I stress about who I let be a connection on Linkedin, especially if their last name starts with an A. God forbid I slip and let my connections lose their luster by allowing Dolly Akers (unemployed) take over the coveted spot of Joe Aaron, a big wheeler and dealer with a company name that says–”damn, she’s connected!”
Ex: Whenever I pull up my Facebook friends, I always see the updates of my A friends, almost never see the updates of “G” friends.
Ex: If you’re name starts with an A on an online dating site–when someone’s “matches” are pulled up, or a search conducted– “a_very_lovely_lady” will beat out “ZsaZsa” any day of the week (which is really unfortunate bc I would bet that ZsaZsa is the real catch).
Ex: Cell phones. It’s 5:45 on a Thursday night and you just saw a blog post about some great HH specials at that new bar down the street. You want to get some of your peeps together to partake but you’ve gotta move fast. Who are you going to call?! (ghost busters, just admit it. half of you probably said ghost busters) You’re going to call the first person on your contact list that you could enjoy having a drink with. There are probably a lot of people you might enjoy having a drink with but are you actually going to call all of them no?
A big thing in the marketing jargon world is TOM. TOM stands for top of mind awareness. Think about the TOM of Abby, Ava, Adonnis (yes, that’s a name of a contact of mine–further proof that TOM is aptly referenced when it comes to the “A” Dilemma ).
LinkedIn aside, from a personal branding perspective, 
I believe the As are advantaged more than they are disadvantaged in this alphabetically sorted online world of oh-so-short attention spans.
I bet expecting couples are probably already trying to come up with names that start with an A in the hopes it will up their child’s social standing on down the online networking line.
Crazy, no?
