Is Your Social Media Squeaky Clean?

Whether we realise it or not, our social media posts from 2009 are still floating around. Depending on who you were in 2009, this could be a big deal!

In an age where trust and authority matter online, you can’t sully your professional brand with the ghosts of your social media past.

That’s why it’s so important for every individual and every brand to do a social media sweep.

The dangers of so-so social

Even if you don’t have questionable content on your social accounts, you’re still due for an audit. If your profiles are more than a year old, it’s time to scrutinise them with a fine-toothed comb.

You need your profiles to be relevant. Failing to audit your accounts opens you up for so many problems, including:

• Inconsistent branding: If your social media doesn’t match your brand, that’s a recipe for customer confusion. It makes you look out of touch and inattentive.
• Spam: Spammy comments are so annoying. If you let spammers go wild on your social account, you’re harming your brand.
• Lack of leads: Yes, social media is still a lead magnet! It’s primarily a place for you to connect with potential customers. Your profile should be starting conversations instead of ending them.

Don’t tarnish your good name with outdated social profiles. Audit yourself to put your best foot forward.

How to scrub your social accounts

Follow this three-step process to keep your social media squeaky clean.

1. Wrangle your profiles

The first step is to locate your social profiles. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, though.

You can easily locate your brand’s Instagram account or Facebook page, but what about that old LinkedIn account? Or that YouTube video of you dancing on tables?

Dig through Google to make sure you don’t overlook a social profile. You want a complete picture of your brand’s online presence to do a proper audit.

Next, see who has access to your social accounts. Are they current or former employees? Do you have the logins? Are any of the accounts unauthorised?

You may need to work with the social network to access your account if you don’t currently control it. Once you have access to your accounts, change passwords and permissions as necessary.

You should also delete any social accounts that no longer serve you. Trust us, that old account from 2012 doesn’t make you look good!

2. Be consistent

Now it’s time to clean up your profiles.

For the accounts you’re keeping, fill out all of the information. Update your photos and header images, taking care that they’re consistent across your accounts. This tells users that they’re in the right place.

If you can, try to get the same name or tag on all of your social accounts. Your colour scheme and logos should also be the same.

3. Address your strategy

Look at your social accounts carefully to see if they still align with your brand goals.

Pull all of your account’s past data. Delete any posts that aren’t in-line with your image, mission, and customer needs. This sounds extreme, but your followers will look at your early posts.

Set appointments in your calendar to review social performance every month, quarter, and year. See which posts got the most engagement. Use these as your roadmap for future content.

The bottom line

Think of social media as a time capsule. As your brand changes, your social profiles also need to change. Conduct a social audit at least once a year to maintain customer trust and consistency. You never know where a cleanup will take you.