How I changed my Twitter Username Without Losing Followers

[Sept 4, 2009 Update:  Twitter now allows you to change your id very easily.]

Here’s how I changed my Twitter username from @raq33 to @saraisenberg without losing followers:

1. Login to NEW account at http://twitter.com/saraisenberg and change the username to a TEMP name such as saraisenberg1.
Log out.

2. Login to the OLD established account  — the one with all the followers –  at http://twitter.com/raq33 and change username from raq33 to saraisenberg.
Log out.

NOTE: During Step 2, a Twitter message said saraisenberg was already taken.  I’ve heard this should be instantaneous but it took more than a day of monitoring Twitter.  The risk is that somebody else may have nabbed my name.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

3. Go to the TEMP account named saraisenberg1 and change that username to raq33.  Leave a note/tweet here about your correct username in case people come here looking for you at your old username.  [An alternative to this step would be to create a new account with the OLD user id, raq33, and leave a note/tweet there.]

Voila!

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