Scheduling Your Social Media Clean Up

We change, we grow, we make better decisions, yet our social media platforms are always there to remind us of what came before. Sometimes this can be hilarious and heartwarming and other times it can punch us right in the professional gut. It’s one thing to have private accounts for close friends and family but maintaining a clean bill of health that fully represents your current brand for the general public is surprisingly important.

We can assume that as your career grows, your audience grows. You are a public figure and we live in a day and age where our content can be used against us.

In the competitive arts industry, while it’s nice to sing Kumbaya with our brothers and sisters, y’all need to watch your backs. We’re a sensitive culture and what may have been funny 3 years ago might not be so funny today. Or – it might be plenty funny but still not appropriate for today’s day and age.

Going through your public (and possibly private) accounts and archiving, deleting, editing is a good idea for all of us. Use these questions as a guidepost while delving into the deep past of your socials:

Does this content still represent my brand?

Could this content be misconstrued and used against me?

Am I still proud of this moment in time?

In no way do I want to spark fear or paranoia because as artists, part of the fun of our content for our audiences is that it’s a true-ish representation of our lives. We *are* our brands more often than not and you don’t want to overly stress about every story, post or shared article but we do change and our consequences for our actions and opinions do grow over time. Remember that this is part of the deal that comes along with being a public persona.

Try setting a date once every 6 months or even once a year where you can scroll back through your socials for a check in. I think you’ll be surprised at how much you DON’T want out there anymore. Now excuse me while I go take down that video of my Oprah impression.