Tidy up Your Social Media Profiles (Challenge and Checklist)

When you have a bunch of social media profiles, it’s easy for them to get out of date.

It could be small things that have since changed or maybe they’re still promoting leftover promos from past launches, or maybe you have profiles that you once created that are still empty with the hope that you’ll come back to them ‘one day’.

This is my experience right now – plus I’ve had a few pivots so some of my profiles could well be describing a completely different person or business!

So I’ve created a small challenge to go through my social media profiles and create a plan to update them.

And I’ve made a downloadable checklist to track it! (Scroll down to the end of this post to download it.)

My goal is to get clear on what profiles I have and create a plan to update them in a way that won’t create even more work for me in the future.

For example, I’m not going to be updating my dormant profiles to say “follow me for more tips on independent expertise development” because that’s going to look a bit sad when a few weeks and months roll by and there’s clearly no tips at all.

Instead, I’m going to decide which social platforms I will focus on (remembering less is more!) and then update the rest to be simple MVPs – Minimum Viable Profiles.

My Minimum Viable Profile could be just a short high level description, a link to my website and/or an evergreen lead magnet or to join the club, and maybe a few evergreen posts if I feel like doing a bit more work.

I put together a few steps to support the challenge and checklist…

Social Media Profile Tidy Challenge Steps

Step 1. List what profiles you have

List all your social media profiles on the Checklist.

Here’s a few to get you started:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter/X
• YouTube
• TikTok
• Pinterest

The Checklist includes a few of the most popular platforms, and then there is space to add any others.

Or you can print out a blank Checklist sheet to create your own list.

When you’ve identified your social media profiles, add a link to each profile so you can access it quickly when you’re doing your review + update.

Step 2. Identify goals for each profile

Identify your primary goal/s for each platform.

But don’t feel you have to be active on all your social platforms!

Decide which platforms you want to focus on and which you’ll keep more passively.

Also different platforms have different strengths and issues – so it can help to get specific on what your goals are for each platform that you do want to focus on.

Some examples:

• Grow my audience to 5000 follows
• Connect with partners and future clients
• Capture leads for my signature offer
• (For a not active profile) Direct visitors to my website

Once you have got your goals down, review them to check they are realistic and sustainable for the energy and attention you want to give those social media platforms.

Step 3. Review your profiles and identify the tasks needed to update each profile

Go to each profile and review them to identify what tasks are needed to update it.

There are 3 key parts to think about:

• Images
• Profile Text
• Content

Images

Do you need to update your profile pic?

Do you need to update your banner/cover image?

The profile pic and banner/cover image are the first and most noticeable thing that any visitors to your profile will notice, so it’s worth putting in some time to make these stand out and communicate what your or your business is about positively.

Tools like Canva and PicMonkey make it super easy to create good looking images. And Hootsuite has a great guide to the best image dimensions to use for specific platforms.

Profile Text

When you’re updating your profile text, step in your visitors’ shoes and think about:

• What will hook them into being interested in what you do? What do they care about?
• What do you want them to think about you? E.g. What you do, who you help, how you help them
• What your call to action? E.g. visit your website, book a 1-1 call, sign up for your lead magnet

If you’re not planning on being active on a social media platform, then keep your profile text simple and as evergreen as you can make. E.g. don’t talk about your “upcoming launch” because that will be out of date once you’ve launched. Instead, you could point them to an evergreen lead magnet that’s still going to be helpful and relevant a year from now.

Content

Review your content and think about:

• Do you want to remove any existing content? E.g. if posts no longer fit with your current approach or vibe you want to convey
• Do you want create any evergreen content for non-active profiles?

If you don’t want to be active on a social media platform, you can still set up one or more evergreen posts so any visitors can get a sense of you or your business.

For example, you can set up a static 9 or 12 grid of posts on Instagram like Kristen from Going Ultraviolet did. https://www.goingultraviolet.com/blog/why-i-blew-up-my-entire-instagram-feed-meet-the-ig-grid-funnel

On Facebook or Twitter/X, you could add a few posts, each linking to a useful article you’ve published, a product or service, or an awesome freebie lead magnets.

On YouTube or TikTok, you could publish one video (or a short series) introducing who you are or your service and giving a small taste of what you do.

Step 4. Check off each profile when you’ve updated it!

Once you have your plan of tasks to update your profiles from the last step, go do it!

There’s space on the Checklist to check off each profile when it’s done.

BONUS Step: Schedule your next Tidy in your Calendar

Once you’ve done this update, go to your calendar and make an appointment with future you to review and update your social media profiles again.

Pick a timeframe that works for you, e.g. each month, every quarter, every 6 months or even once a year.