My four boys detest cleaning up. The groans, grunts and comments come thick and fast:
“No-one else’s mother makes them clean up like you do”.
“I’m sure the UN would consider this illegal – it’s forced child labour”.
Well, too bad boys – clean-ups are here to stay!!
But with school holidays just a few weeks away, I am preparing a different style of clean-up for my oldest two boys – a social media clean up!
I am a big believer in regularly taking the time to go through your social media profiles with a fine tooth comb. I can’t stress enough how important it is to manage your profile. The photos we are tagged in, the comments we make, the pages we like and the groups we follow all form a part of our digital reputation. Your digital reputation shapes how you’re perceived by others both online and offline, now and in the future.
So, here is what I am going to strongly suggest to my boys in order to clean up their Facebook profiles.
1. Friends – make sure you actually know everyone who is your online friend. Remember, the more friends you have the greater the chance your private information can go AWOL.
2. Photos – Delete photos that reflect badly on you. Review all photos that others have tagged you in and where necessary, untag yourself. Facebook’s latest News Feed has dramatically increased the size of photos so this is more important than ever. If your child is thinking about becoming captain of the football team or a school leader then this is critical.
3. Privacy Settings – Make sure your profile is set to private and do this regularly, to makes sure the settings haven’t changed.
4. Profile Settings – Delete any personal information. Even if your profile is private, you can’t be sure what your friends do with your information.
5. Posts – Review your posts. To ensure your safety, delete all posts that include your personal information. And don’t forget about the posts that aren’t kind, include foul language or generally don’t reflect well on you – these can be seriously limiting to your job prospects or potential leadership opportunities.
And finally, once you have had your kids clean up their Facebook profile, spend a little time cleaning up your own also. No groaning please!!