3 Steps To Clean Up Your Social Media Footprint

Nowadays, we are quick to upload our latest adventures or experiences to social media with a click of a button. And if you are on social media at all, just think of how much content you’ve accumulated in your social media footprint over the past few years.  For perspective, Instagram launched over a decade ago, Facebook is over two decades old, and even TikTok is getting up there in years! Considering how your social media presence can significantly impact people's perception of you, it’s important to make a good impression – and part of that involves removing and deleting old content that does not resonate with your reputation and who you are today. So take control of your digital presence by cleaning up your social media history. 

Why should you clean up your social media history? 

Whether you are a business or an individual searching for people to connect with, work with, or learn about, the internet is usually the first place you turn to. This is why it is of utmost importance to take a step back and really understand what your digital presence says about you.  On an individual level, a strong digital presence will influence your networking opportunities and how well you connect with others. While on a business level, a positive online presence will help you attract and retain customers and build genuine partnerships that help your business flourish. If you haven't already, it's time to audit your old social media posts and clean up your social media history. Think of it as spring cleaning for your social media footprint, where the main objective is to review and remove any content that does not align with the public image you want to portray.  With that in mind, let’s explore the steps you can take to clean up your social media history. 

How can you clean up your social media history? 

Step 1: Audit your social media handles.  

• The first step is to review all active and inactive social media profiles across different platforms to understand the number of posts, followers, and type of media posted (text, photos, or videos). Based on this information, prioritize which social media accounts you want to tackle first. We recommend starting with your most active profiles and working your way down to the least active ones. 

Step 2: Scan for negative content. 

• Now that you have selected a profile to clean up, it's time to create a list of key flags to measure your posts against. These categories can be anything you don’t want to be associated with which can range from sensitive topics like intolerance and hate speech to less problematic ones, such as profanity, alcohol usage, etc. Ask yourself whether this content will hurt your professional credibility and keep people or businesses from relying on you for making important decisions on behalf of them. 

Step 3: Don’t forget to review all types of media content 

• It might be a daunting task, but it is of utmost importance to review the images, captions, comments, and videos uploaded to your account. While we don’t have as much control over the posts we’re tagged in, you should check that, too, because your followers have access to all of your social media activity. This is why it is important to scan through everything that’s attached to your handle. 

… Or you can let the AI handle it all!

Cleaning up your social media history is no easy task. It involves a lot of exhausting, time-consuming manual labor. Plus, quickly scanning through hundreds (if not thousands) of old social media posts is risky because of human error. You might even miss something inappropriate, especially if you’ve already been doing it for hours and the mental fatigue is setting in. If history dictates anything, it only takes one post, one comment, one tag or one picture on social media to destroy the reputation you’ve worked so hard to build. So why not let AI scan your entire social media history to make sure nothing gets missed while taking a fraction of the time it would take you to do it yourself?  Luckily, there is technology (such as Viral Nation_Secure) that is equipped to screen social media, including Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and more, for any content that could harm your reputation. Using Viral Nation_Secure will help you do all that while combing through your images, videos, tags and comments across 35+ criteria (including alcohol, profanity, drugs, and nudity) to flag any content that may be inappropriate. It is the most effective and efficient way to review and delete negative social media content across all of your social media accounts, ensuring your social media history accurately represents the image you want to promote. 

Stay Proactive: Monitor, Protect, and Connect 

Reviewing and cleaning up your social media history is only half the story of maintaining a great social media presence. The other half is having a social media policy in place. Whether you are a business, a creator, or an individual with a social media handle, a social media policy will guide you to post the type of content that is reflective of you. These guidelines can include your content's tone, message, and other details that could potentially impact your reputation to prevent any negative harm in the future.  While social policies can help prevent you from posting harmful content, sometimes you can be so close to your own content that you can't look at it objectively. AI platforms such as Viral Nation_Secure can be a fresh set of eyes to scan and review your content. Without any bias, Viral Nation_Secure will act as your audience's view and flag anything negative that you might have missed. This way, you stay proactive in monitoring what you're publishing. Protect your reputation and connect with your audience the way you want!  Request a demo today and see for yourself how Viral Nation_Secure can help you clean up your social media history.