You’ve seen it by now. Another celebrity, athlete or reporter’s dirty laundry dug up from their social media archives and unveiled to the public. The New York Times tech reporter, Sarah Jeong, received a bitter welcome recently when, shortly after joining the editorial board, Internet sleuths uncovered her years-old scathing tweets against white people. Simple ‘likes’ on social media posts aren’t immune to scrutiny either. After ABC’s The Bachelorette premiered this summer, winner Garrett Yrigoyen was thrust into the spotlight when controversial ‘likes’ of his were discovered on Instagram and Twitter.
This phenomenon of digging up inflammatory social media posts is a relatively new one, and one with potentially damaging consequences. It can tarnish a person’s reputation, knock their credibility and throw their career in jeopardy. And it seems to be happening primarily to those who have it all… until they don’t.
So, how can you make sure you don’t become the next social media pariah? Check out these four tips for protecting yourself from your Internet past, and preserving a polished profile.
Conduct a social media audit.
Has it been years since you looked back at your college-era tweets? Are there photos of you on your Instagram in an inebriated state? Review your old posts and delete or make private those that are inappropriate, strewn with typos or incite political debates. If you have to question whether or not an old post should remain, it’s better to err on the side of caution and remove the post altogether. Chances are, a boss or employer would question it, as well.
Some social media sites make it difficult to retrieve old data. To download your entire Twitter archive, go into your account settings and click the ‘Request your archive’ button next to ‘Your Tweet archive.’ A link will be emailed to you once it’s ready to access.
Ask for a second set of eyes.
Much like peer editing a paper, sometimes you need to let an objective third party take over. Ask a friend to canvass your social media profiles and call out what needs to be changed. Your peers can help you determine whether you need to replace your profile picture or headshot, remove any outdated information or update empty spaces on your profile. You’d be surprised by what you miss, and what another notices.
Don’t create multiple platforms for yourself.
You might think that leading a double life on social media will shield you from your employers, but in reality, it does the opposite. If an employer sees that you have a public Twitter account, in addition to a private Twitter account, they may wonder what you’re hiding. Not all of your information needs to be shared in a public forum, but posting from multiple accounts on one platform will raise suspicion. Or, at the very least, cause confusion.
In addition, delete any old accounts that you no longer post to. You don’t need to be on every social media platform, but you do need to make sure you’re posting semi-regularly to the platforms you decide to populate.
Take a close look at your privacy settings.
If you’re unsure about which elements of your profile are visible to the public, look at your privacy settings. Social media websites like Facebook typically have functions that allow you to view your profile through the eyes of a stranger, friend or mutual friend. Also, these websites are constantly changing their settings to become more advanced and give users more control over their content, so, go into your settings from time to time and check out what’s changed.
Maintaining a polished Internet persona is a lot easier than you think. By conducting yearly social media audits, retrieving old posts from your archives and scrubbing questionable material, you can ensure that a social snafu doesn’t happen to you.
What social media faux pas do you see most often? Let us know in the comments below.
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