There has been a growing trend of brands and public figures completely wiping or deleting the entire histories of their social media accounts. Major companies like Burger King and celebrities like the Kardashians have cleared their Instagram feeds or deleted years’ worth of old tweets. This seemingly counterintuitive act of erasing one’s online presence raises questions around the strategic reasons behind such digital housekeeping.
Key Reasons Driving the Timeline Clearing Trend
This trend, often referred to as “timeline clearing,” reflects a strategic move to better align with modern branding, risk management, and audience engagement goals. Below are some of the key motivations behind this growing phenomenon.
Strengthen Brand Identity
With the average social media newsfeed cluttered with mixed content, brands struggle to create a unified and consistent brand image across platforms. Actions such as “delete all tweets” or wiping entire timelines allow brands to rebuild their feeds focused specifically on their current branding, products, or messaging.
For example, in 2021, Burger King removed all Instagram posts to draw attention to its redesigned brand identity and food offerings. By creating a clean slate, brands can reinforce branding and eliminate outdated or irrelevant posts.
Leave Controversies Behind
Public online histories also mean years of posts that could potentially cause controversy or scandals in the future. Brands and influencers wiping their accounts preemptively reduce this risk and allow them to move forward with a clean reputation.
Celebrities like Justin Bieber and the Kardashians have faced backlash over resurfaced old social media posts. Wiping timelines gives public figures more control over their narrative and public perception. Brands similarly remove posts to dissociate from past failures or PR crises.
Revive Follower Interest
Social media users tend to engage less with accounts that frequently post. Wiping timelines allows brands and celebrities to counter follower fatigue. By wiping and starting over, they regain follower attention and recreate initial interest levels.
Data shows wiping can have real impact. One influencer saw a 2500% increase in likes after wiping and reposting content. The spike in engagement shows followers re-engage out of interest in refreshed content.
Gain Media Attention
Wiping social media histories, especially for major brands, also serves as a publicity stunt to gain media coverage. Burger King’s wiped Instagram received widespread coverage. The deliberate erasing of online presence fuels curiosity and discussion.
Additionally, a wiped timeline filled with new promotional posts ensures that any media coverage effectively provides free advertising for the brand’s key messaging or products.
The Risks of Wiping Timelines
While clearing social media feeds offers strategic advantages, it also comes with significant drawbacks that can undermine the very goals brands and influencers hope to achieve. It’s essential to weigh these consequences before committing to a full timeline wipe.
Losing Followers
The main risk for brands and influencers clearing their feeds is that it permanently removes content that had previously attracted followers. Unless they rebuild their audience with new content, brands stand to lose a sizable portion of their followers.
Data shows that influencers can lose over 20% of followers when wiping accounts. For brands and public figures, lower follower counts can negatively impact their perceived relevance and popularity.
Inauthenticity and Follower Trust
Followers also value authenticity in the brands and people they support online. Drastically wiping timelines can seem inauthentic or suggest that brands/influencers are hiding something disingenuous in their pasts.
Without context, timeline clearing can make followers feel betrayed or lose trust. Brands and public figures should explain their reasons for wiping to followers to maintain openness and honesty.
Best Practices for Wiping
Provide followers with context. Be transparent about motivations for wiping to minimize follower loss and retain authenticity. Share a quick explanation post beforehand detailing if it’s for a rebrand, a fresh start for new content, or other reasons.
Announce it as a fresh start. Frame the timeline as a new chapter for your brand’s story or a fresh start for followers to get excited about. This positive messaging reduces perceptions of inauthenticity.
Gradually archive old content. For brands where loyal followers have been invested in old social media content for a long time, slowly making posts private over time can soften the blow and avoid the sudden disappearance.
Repost top-performing content. Re-share the best few posts that were the most appealing to your audience immediately after cleaning your feeds. This maintains interest from the best of the past content while still leaving space for new posts.
Closely monitor engagement. Monitor follower counts, new follower growth, likes and comments before and after wiping to measure effects on important metrics of engagement. Use data to inform the content strategy for future use.
Future Outlook
Although wiping social media timelines is quite new even today, analysis indicates that it might be a norm in the future. More brands and public figures will be wiping their histories as online reputations become valuable and permanent.
Routine timeline clearing also enables brands to renew themselves to avoid stagnation. Nevertheless, the brands that will be most successful in it will succeed without sacrificing authenticity and without explaining the reasons for such digital housekeeping.
The Importance of Online Reputation Management
In a 24/7 online world where tweets and posts become immortal, it is essential that brands and public personalities are actively managing their online presence and reputation. Although timeline wiping is dangerous, it provides the control over the way one’s public image develops.
Brands come with the additional burden of portraying a uniform identity on social media. While concentrating on innovation in branding, products, and messaging, wiping timelines from time to time helps brands to provide a seamless customer experience.
The permanence of the internet for celebrities and influencers means that early career tweets or posts can be dug out to cause problems later. The wiping gives public figures the leeway to stretch their legs without the burden of their pasts holding them back.