Reviewing your social media past and present can help build your brand for the future.
By Lauren Mack
Have you ever heard the phrase, “the internet is forever”? This tidbit of online wisdom is intended to prevent the posting of embarrassing, rude or overly personal content to the internet. However, despite one’s best intentions, posts that seemed perfectly acceptable at the time don’t always hold up over time.
This issue is especially prevalent in professional sports, where college-age athletes are suddenly thrown into the spotlight after being drafted to pro teams. Questionable posts from years prior can jeopardize their entire career. A careful social audit could’ve helped prevent these old tweets from resurfacing and protected their professional reputations. The same holds true for you.
If you’re using social media to grow your personal brand (spoiler: you must), it’s important to do a periodic social media audit to remove or hide outdated or ill-advised social posts.
“Doing a periodical audit of your brand’s social media presence should be a key part of your brand management,” said marketing consultant Kelly McCabe. “The internet is forever, and your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what other people say it is. What they say comes from either their perception or experience with your brand. Social media is a huge part of both of those factors. This is why a periodical social media audit is so important.”
This is especially important if your privacy settings are minimal, set to “public”, or if you recently started posting business and branding content to what was previously your personal page.
Social media has become a crucial tool for evaluating everything from tack brands to trainers. Your clients likely follow you and your peers, taking note of the brands used and the advice given. Expect your potential clients to do a search of your social media before they decide to train with you, purchase brands you endorse, or buy a horse from you. A strong social media presence can give you a leg up on the competition, but unprofessional accounts can be harmful.
Audit all of your profiles, both business and personal, on all social platforms from Twitter and Instagram to Facebook and LinkedIn. Even if your personal and business accounts are run separately, there’s a possibility that potential customers will look at both. It’s important to consider how your personal account may affect your business or brand.
Follow these tips and tricks while evaluating your social media.
Find Your Accounts
Take note of every social media profile you have created for yourself. Are there any accounts you forgot about or abandoned?
Prioritize
Consider deleting accounts that are inactive or not representative of your brand. Focus your energy on the accounts you consistently use and are most relevant to your audience. Typically, your accounts with the most followers are the ones you’ll want to keep, but also consider content format. If you want to show off sale horses or highlight client achievements, using an image and video-based platform like Instagram might make more sense than a text-based platform like Twitter.
Consistency Is Key
If possible, you should use the same name and social media handle across all platforms. This allows your clients and potential clients to easily find your accounts and helps build brand recognition. Make sure all names are spelled correctly and that your profile images are recent and of good quality.
Post Check
Look at each post and ask yourself, “Am I proud of this?” Is it something you want your clients to see? Is it consistent with who you are and how you want to represent your business or brand? If the answer is no, remove it. Pro tip: Instagram offers an archive feature that allows you to hide the post from your profile without deleting it. If you ever want to replace it back onto your profile, you can do so from your archive.
Reminder: Social Media Is Not Private
Social media has the potential to feel like a safe space, but even private accounts are not completely private. Those who follow you can easily screenshot and share your posts if they wish. Posts on public accounts are also easily shareable via retweets, shares, or other methods depending on the platform.
