I’m not sure where my energy came from, but yesterday I attacked several large storage boxes that were glaring at me from my bedroom closet. They had been staring me down for more than two years, and my poor boyfriend has heard me say countless times: “I’ll go through them one day, hon.” Yesterday was the day! And while there’s still more to do, wow, did it feel good to sift and winnow through box contents.
I determined that I don’t need to hang on to that 5k trophy, nor do I need 15 Precious Moments figurines from my childhood. Don’t make me part with my Anne of Green Gables series, however. That stays!
De-cluttering my closet made me think about de-cluttering my online presence heading into 2017. Here are five tactics to consider:
Google yourself. When was the last time you did a quick online search for your full name? Company name? What pops up? Now click on “images.” Are you happy with results? If not, it might be time to request removal from junk sites, and to improve SEO heading into 2017.
Clean house on Twitter. I recently assisted a client with trimming several hundred accounts it was “following” on Twitter to balance “Followers” with “Following” – thus making the company appear more reputable and improving overall clout. “Nobody likes following a Twitter account that is following 1000 people but has 10 followers. It just looks spammy…” according to the author of a nice piece on DigiWriteIt about balancing your Following:Followers ratio. A 1:5 ratio is suggested.
Clean house on Facebook. Whether it be your personal or professional page, spend some time liking and/or unliking pages. If you’re scrolling through your News Feed and thinking, “Who is that?” or “What does that company do again?” then it’s time to unfollow.
If you’re not already on Instagram, get there. My clients are seeing more engagement on Instagram than on other social media sites as of late. Show off your products, your services, your new videos – soon your customers will be doing the same! Six hundred million image-loving Instagram users can’t be wrong. And when you consider that back in September 2015, Instagram had a mere 400 million users…
Spruce up your website and blog. Are you loving your website? Are you blogging on a regular basis? If not, dedicate time to both. Or hire someone else to polish this up on your behalf.
Cheers to a sparkly online presence this New Year! And if anyone wants a Precious Moments statue or two, you know where to find me.