Every Muslim woman (and Muslim man) knows how important reputation is our Muslim community. African, Middle Eastern and Asian communities can be very critical (as we all know) therefore your reputation determines your future opportunities and the way people see you. That is because others’ perception of you precedes you, even before you enter their lives. That is why reputation is so important in many cultures! Not only that, but your reputation also indicates something about your family and how you were raised. Consequently, if your reputation has negative connotations it may stand in the way of wonderful opportunities.
If a Muslim man has a reputation of being dishonest, it will lessen his chances of marrying a respectable high-value Muslim woman! The same goes for Muslim women, maybe even more because women have always been more critiqued by our cultures than our men. Some reputations are ruined by something haram: slander. But sometimes we are perfectly capable of ruining our own reputations through social media! That’s why I share … tips to help you clean up and protect your reputation online! Start controlling your feminine reputation by strategizing, planning and setting the right intention!
Why you should clean up your reputation
As I said, your reputation can be used against or it can work for you! Therefore you should be careful about what you post online. Guard your reputation with your life! Because social media is a very powerful narrative. Character assassination takes just one screenshot of your story while you’re doing something ‘bad’ or frowned upon. A person who wants to do damage to your reputation will find few obstacles online, easily ruining your good name. Therefore you should clean up your public persona by cleaning up your online presence and make sure it stays clean!
How To To Clean Up & Protect My Reputation ONLINE
Step 1. Don’t put out what you don’t want others to see
Let’s start with the images you choose to put online. They say a lot about the kind of person you are, not only the way you smile but everything down to the background. That is why your background should be clean, with no crazy things on display. For example: if you take a picture in your room, you need to make sure that your room is spotless. Maybe even add some flowers to spruce the place up. No underwear on the ground, no clothes on your bed, no messes!
Same goes for the kind of picture you want to take. Make sure your pictures are high-quality images and not blurry (unless it’s an artistic choice to make the picture blurry). People judge everything nowadays, so don’t give them ammunition, please.
Step 2. Make sure you’re not tagged in ugly pictures
Make sure your friends ask you if they want to put a picture of you online. We all know that feeling of seeing a picture online, were you look unflattering and all your friends look perfect. It’s degrading and can tarnish your whole feed especially because everyone can be tagged nowadays. Permission is very important so make sure your friends show you the picture before they post it. If they post it without your consent, then they may not be such good friends after all. You may even say goodbye to some frenemies because they can’t wait to post an ugly photo with you in it! To that, I say good riddance.
Step 3. Cleanse your timelines every 6 months
If you are serious about protecting your reputation and cleaning up your image, you need to learn how to reflect. That’s why from now on, you will take down any images you posted on your social media that no longer reflect who you are or who you want to be. You should do this every 6 months, maybe even 3 months if you are someone who posts a lot. You might even consider deleting images of you that are older than 3 years. Do you really look like you used to then? Probably not, so stop selling that. In the case of Instagram timelines and social media, less is more! Make sure that you still have a bit of mystery surrounding you.
It doesn’t even have to be deleted necessarily. Instagram offers the option to archive your pictures so only you can see them!
Step 4. No childish behaviour
Look through your stories and pictures. Do you share a lot of memes? Delete them. Are you now wearing a hijab but do you have stories or pictures of when you didn’t wear it before? Delete them. Are there any childish or nasty things you’ve shared? Delete them! Again, when it comes to social media, less is more. Imagine you take a screenshot of a conversation and share it online, how responsible, credible and trustworthy does that make you look? Exactly! Not at all. Before you post ANYTHING, I need you to think if the you in 6 months is going to cringe when she sees it. Is the answer yes? Then don’t post it!
Don’t give people ammunition or ‘receipts’ to use against you. Did you say something dumb? Delete it and hope no one screenshotted it. People will use your old pictures, tweets, comments and stories to make you seem bad which is why you need to think about what you put out there! What would your future employer, husband, mother in law think when they hear or see certain things about you?
Don’t ever talk bad about anyone ever is maybe better, but for now, let’s focus on bad talking that can be screenshotted. Did you know that when you talk about other people, you are really just talking about yourself? Are you sharing a story in which you call your boss an idiot? In reality, you’re talking about your lack of patience and maybe your superiority complex. Are you telling one of your friends about another friend in your group? You just proved to her that she can’t trust you not to talk about her too. Are you calling a girl ‘needy’ or easy? That speaks volumes about your insecurities.
Bad talking is a reflection of who you are. It says more about you and the petty version of yourself that you can be, then about the person, you are bad talking. Bad talking is often slander and is seen as one of the greatest and most dangerous and in the meantime most popular corruptions of Muslims! Social media makes it worse because you are sharing your slandering openly! You can be critical, sure, but always be respectful and truthful. I’m not saying you can never critique a political leader, but do it tastefully and have a foundation to build on. Be strategic in what you say and what you don’t say.
if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all
Step 6. Put your account on private
My biggest tip is to put your accounts on private. But why? This way you have control over who sees your posts. If someone wants to follow you and see your pictures, they can, but they will not see anything until you approve them! That means that haters can’t snoop unless they are the kind of person who would actually create a fake account *I always try to no be judgemental but for those of you who actually do this kind of stuff, do yourself a favour and stop*. “Haters?” you ask? Haters are a logical consequence once you start becoming more high-value. Many people will want to see you do well, but never better than them, remember that.
Also, putting your account on private adds a certain element of mystery to you. You are not someone who shares your entire life with just anyone! You need to approve those who want to see your life. I know that everyone nowadays measures their success by how many followers they have, but I think it says something about their need for attention. To me, it always screamed desperation. Are you really okay with anyone just being able to see your pictures? Don’t you want to first see if you know the person? You need to vet the people who want to see your life. The evil eye is a real thing, don’t give haters a chance sis.
Step 7. If you need to block, then block!
I have this cousin who I absolutely adore. The thing is, she has a big mouth. She doesn’t even do it on purpose, she is just so lively and wants to share everything with everyone. There is not a bad bone in her body, but still, I decided to block her and others from seeing my stories (not my pictures though). They don’t know that and they don’t need to. But this way I make sure, my business stays mine and is only shared with those I want to share it with.
Does that make me mean? I don’t think so! I think it makes me strategic. And that’s how I want you to look at everything you post. The time you posted, the people who can see it, the caption you added to it, the story you told. You may think it’s not that deep’ but everything on the internet stays on the internet. Just ask any celebrity with a sex tape.
Step 8. Start fresh
If your account is a lost case, if you have 3.000 followers who you don’t even know, if you have more than 200 mean comments that you can’t find and therefore can’t delete. When you know that there is just too much to fix, just start over. Clean slate! Delete your entire account. Download all the pictures you don’t want to lose, screenshot the sweet conversation or comments you want to keep and write down the names of people that you want to follow. After all that, just delete your account. Cleanse yourself of the person you don’t want to be anymore and start fresh. Maybe keep your accounts separate from now on, one for business and one for friends! Only accept people you know to follow you, or people that you want to get to know you. Make it hard to get into your life.
The greater the effort the sweeter the reward
Go to Google and google your own name. Go to the pictures and see how many pictures of you are on there. If you hate them, then go to the website that is portraying them and ask them to delete it! Deleting the person you were, so you can become who you want to be!
In order to rise from its own ashes, a phoenix first must burn.
Become that Classy, High-Value Muslim Sister!
These steps will help you clean up and protect your reputation online. Of course, there are probably more things you can do, so if you miss one, just leave a comment in the comment section. If you want to know, I only follow 302 people and have 346 people who follow me. Most of those people I know. The ones I don’t know are either brands or people who want to get to know me and I approved *wink, wink*. I take my reputation very seriously because I know how much it is worth and how hard it is to fix once it’s been ruined. My purpose is to protect Muslim sisters from making mistakes like this!
Do you want to learn more about this topic? Then make sure you check the tags and the category Self-Love, and Elegance. Or you can follow me on my social media account to get an update every time a need blog is posted. I also write about Modesty, love and more if you are interested! Do you want to help the other Muslim sisters in your life on their journey to becoming a High-value Muslim sister? Then share my blog with them and follow me on Social Media!
Kisses,
Your Classy Muslim Sister
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