How To Clean Your Social Media Profiles

Are you looking for a job? You might want to delete this from your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! Of course, Linkedin too! Click here for our Linkedin professional guide.

In this new day and age where we share everything on all of the different social media platforms, people don’t really have to look that hard to find out things about you. These things can be positive and serve as an added bonus to your resume or they can be the complete opposite. We’ve all shared and over shared things that we now wish we hadn’t, so maybe it’s time to take a moment and put yourself to the task of cleaning out your social media profiles. Facebook is one of the big ones, and if you’re looking for a job, it’s probably one of the first things your potential employer will stumble upon, so those forgotten and unwanted posts can really come back to bite you. Overall, whether you want to look impeccable for an employer or you want to start practising your privacy, it’s a good idea to go through your profiles and get rid of what you don’t think should be up there anymore.

Not to worry, thank the Lord there’s a delete button and privacy options! However, it can be quite difficult to choose a starting point. That’s why today I bring you some guidelines that might help you get started and make this chore a little easier for you.

Embarrassing photos have to go!

Those drunken pics you took at that party were really fun at the moment; you were having a good time messing around with your friends, but now you’ve outgrown them. Or, more specifically, you’ve outgrown the fact that they should be out there for everyone to see. They’re cool memories, but maybe it’s time for you to save those photos for yourself, especially if you might have a possible employer go through your profile. That’s not the image that you want to portray to a potential employer, is it? So you can delete them from the public eye or you can adjust your privacy settings, either way, it can only help your image!

Don’t put your phone number online

This is more of a personal safety issue rather than a job-related issue. Long gone are the days when you weren’t afraid of having your phone number for everyone to see; maybe you were even hoping that a cute guy or girl would see your number and reach out, but in the age of Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc., it’s not necessary to have your number available for total strangers. Now you can choose who can communicate with you so it might be time to modify your personal details.

Don’t keep putting your location online

Following the line of personal safety, this is also a major precaution to take. It’s okay to keep a record of all the cool places you’ve traveled to, all of the popular restaurants and coffee shops you’ve visited and all the clubs you’ve been to, but it’s not necessary to share your location every minute of every day. Sharing your location at home, or when you’re grocery shopping, or at the bank is a big no-no! Value your privacy and make judgments about the things that are worth sharing or documenting for future reference, and the things that you should keep to yourself. Neither will help a potential employer and it could put some employers off if you are going to places not in line with their value system.

Delete anything from that one friend, you know who!

We’ve all got that friend who has a really “yolo” attitude about Facebook and a peculiar sense of humor. You know who I’m talking about, the one that makes your heart rate slightly go up whenever you get one of his notifications. They sure don’t hesitate to tag you in inappropriate photos, memes, videos, what have you; so why would you still allow it? Go to your privacy settings and take care of it. You can decide what people can and cannot share on your profile. Once you do that, you’ll get a request every time that one friend tags you in something “hilarious” and you’ll get to decide if you want it published on your profile or not. This will do wonders for your social media presence; no one thinks highly of a personal profile full of junk!

Keep your boss away

Let’s say you managed to clean up your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram presence and you’ve got the job (congratulations!), now please don’t add your boss on Facebook! I know you’ll think it’s probably a good idea at first; maybe it will get you some extra credit in their mind, maybe you’ll be buddies. No, the smartest thing to do is to keep your relationships separate and professional (unless your boss is someone cool like Elon Musk, or Gary Vaynerchuk). There are other social media platforms that you can share with your boss, such as Twitter and LinkedIn where you behave yourself a little more, but not Facebook. Never Facebook. Think about it, do you want your boss to see your holiday pictures? Do you want him to see you on your bathing suit? Eating? Making faces? What about those embarrassing pics that might still pop up? And the music you like? The movies you’ve watched? What about the memes you share at 2 in the morning and the funny/disgusting videos you wanted your friends to see? No, of course, you don’t want your boss to see that! Go and make sure he doesn’t.

We hope this helped you, please share it with your friends if it did! 🙂