Here in Ohio, the forsythia is about to bloom, trees are budding, and daffodils are everywhere.
Spring has sprung, which means it’s time to start the annual spring cleaning.
It happens every year.
And, in between washing walls and windows, putting away sweaters and mittens, and hauling out the flip flops, you can take a few minutes to spring clean your digital presence.
Like traditional cleaning, you need to do it, and it isn’t always fun, but the results are well worth the effort you invest.
You can break your digital spring cleaning up into groups of tasks and do a little bit at a time, or pull a marathon and go through it all on the same day.
Take these Five Steps to Digital Spring Cleaning
1. Review
Your digital presence is defined in large part by your website, your blog, and your social networking profiles. Take the time to go back and review each of them. Does your website accurately reflect your business? Is it time to give it an updated look and feel? What about your blog? (My personal blog is waaay out of date, and I have neglected it sadly for many, many months. It’s at the top of my to-do list.)
How about your social networking profiles? Take the time to review things like your “friends” and old notes or page “likes.” Look at your Facebook Timeline image, your Google+ banner, and your Twitter background. Reread your LinkedIn profile. Review your Twitter lists. How about the people you are following or those who you’ve accepted as friends, are they still important?
In today’s fast-paced digital world, things are always changing. It’s important to review your digital channels on a regular basis to make sure each one is doing its part to help build an effective digital presence for you.
2. Remove
Is it time to get rid of old content that no longer serves its purpose? What about some of those pictures you’ve been tagged in on Facebook? You know, the ones that don’t show you at your best or could be misinterpreted. How about the Twitter followers you don’t connect with or those who are spamming the network? Remove people you follow that you don’t know, care for or connect with, remove the “friends” who aren’t really friends, the content that’s outdated or potentially problematic, and anything that just doesn’t fit today.
3. Reorganize
Now you can reorganize. Go through your Google Analytics and see what visitors to your site are paying attention to. You may find content you’d forgotten or decide to move content around to make it easier to find. You might even rediscover a topic you’d overlooked, something you can dust off and reuse. Go through your Instagram channel or the albums you’ve uploaded to Google+. Think through how you are using online tools to update your social media channels. Do you need to revise or reorganize that process?
4. Renew
Renew your focus and interest in your online activity. In the same way that having a sparkling clean house or apartment makes you feel reenergized, having your digital spring cleaning done and provides a sense of relief and makes it easy–and even fun–to get back in the game with renewed energy and drive.
5. Relax
Now you can relax. It’s been a bit of work, but well worth doing, and you can kick back and relax, knowing your digital presence is what you want and need it to be.
For now.
Have you gone through the digital spring cleaning process yet this year? What tips would you offer? Got any tools to suggest to make things easier?
A version of this post first appeared on SpinSucks.com.