The Role of Deleted Tweets in Personal Branding: Do They Really Matter?

Personal branding online has become increasingly crucial in the digital era. From celebrities to politicians to businesspeople, everyone worries about creating an online character and image. This is mostly dependent on social media presence, particularly on a site like Twitter, where a succinct, sharp message may change public opinion.

But the laid-back, off-the-cuff character of sites like Twitter sometimes results in perhaps harmful postings. Deleting tweets has become very common in reputation management. But in a world where screenshots live forever, how much of a factor deleted tweets actually have for personal branding? The effect is examined in this paper.

The Rise of Deleting Tweets

Social media posts were once considered impermanent. However, as online reputations became serious business, deleting tweets became standard practice. High-profile individuals now routinely sanitize their Twitter histories. 

For businesses, an off-brand tweet can mean public backlash and loss of customers. Thus, branded accounts generally take extra caution. In fact, major agencies even offer Twitter deletion services, such as delete tweets by TweetEraser, to avoid PR crises. 

Clearly, the concept of ephemeral social media is now obsolete. In a highly interconnected world, online actions leave indelible digital footprints, making tweet deletion an act of reputation management and branding.

The Illusion of Deleted Tweets

In practical terms, does tweet deletion make an actual difference? With screenshotting and archiving so prevalent today, no online action fully disappears. Platforms like Politwoops maintain extensive deleted tweet archives from politicians. Google caches often store deleted pages for months. So, for figures of public interest, tweet deletions rarely offer true scrubbing.

However, tweet deletions are likely to provide more leeway for everyday users. Unless a tweet goes viral beforehand, its archives fade away quickly without constant public scrutiny. In this case, deleting tweets limits their visibility and searchability.

Nonetheless, the illusion of deletion impacts public perception. Seen through an ethical lens, deleting tweets hints at an attempt to hide opinions and present an altered persona. This itself risks undermining trust in branding. And if controversial deleted tweets do resurface eventually, it seems doubly manipulative.

In essence, while tweet deletions may not fully erase digital footprints, they still shape personal branding via public perception. The act itself matters beyond how effectively it removes tweet traces.

When Tweet Deletion Impacts Branding

Now that deleting tweets is the status quo online, the act itself rarely makes news. In most cases, tweet deletion generates minimal branding impact, but context still plays a key role.

Firstly, timing matters. If old controversial tweets resurface after years, especially from younger years, the public response tends to be more lax. There is an understanding that views evolve. But deleting tweets made recently appears more suspiciously purposeful, risking claims of being inauthentic or hiding flip-flopping.

Secondly, patterns of deletion draw added scrutiny. Groups of missing tweets, especially around sensitive issues, undermine branding significantly.

Likewise, the scale of deletions correlates, too. Research into Donald Trump's tweets showed over 56,000 tweets, many of which were deleted. Deleting tweets itself might be commonplace, but mass tweet deletion, to this extent, contradicts typical Twitter usage, suggesting potential reputation manipulation.

Lastly, the account type plays a role too. Personal accounts draw less attention than public figure accounts. However, branded business accounts see more backlash to deleted tweets since online authenticity matters greatly for customer trust.

In essence, beyond actual tweet content, contextual factors around deletion patterns dramatically sway public response and impact branding.

Best Practices for Deletion and Personal Branding

Given the increasing importance of embedded tweet deletion in reputation management online, what are some of the best practices individuals and brands should follow?

Firstly, limited deletion is advisable. With widespread archiving, most tweet removal no longer fully erases traces. Thus, it is preferable to delete only tweets that are likely to cause serious backlash. This avoids looking suspiciously manipulative compared to peers.

Secondly, owning past mistakes is better for branding than hiding them. Where controversial tweets cannot be avoided, adding context in a follow-up tweet often mitigates the situation. Having a change of heart is more authentic than trying to cover up opinions.

Third, temporarily tweeting and deleting shortly thereafter is a way to test public reaction. The tweets are so ephemeral that they don’t attract too much attention before they disappear, which allows people to use Twitter a bit more casually without worrying about branding.

Branding can be preserved responsibly with the use of tweet deletion tools. TweetEraser allows users to set rules to auto-delete tweets older than a specified period. It allows people to avoid manual deletion of mass and keeps past tweets from becoming public.

Tweet deletion can no longer erase online actions, but maintaining the right balance between transparency and regular curation is best for branding, and surgical deletion is the least controversial way to do so without compromising authenticity.

The Role of Archiving in Public Memory

Despite its prevalence now, tweet deletion does risk erasing collective public memory. When politicians remove records of past positions, it hides factual shifts for voters. Without archives, factual recall becomes harder. Even researchers analyzing trends rely on deleted tweet records.

This makes non-partisan public archives for verification important. Platforms like Politwoops and ProPublica’s Politwoops preserve these records. The Library of Congress even archives all public tweet histories for posterity.

Such archives balance free speech with accountability. They allow the public to make informed choices about flip-flopping opinions while upholding the right to deletion. In fact, the EU “right to be forgotten” laws also mandate archiving before deletion to balance interests.

Through archives, tweet deletions continue to serve personal branding interests without sacrificing transparency and voter awareness.

The Future of Tweet Deletion

Now that tweet deletion is on the rise, views remain divided on whether or not to allow it versus permanent records. What will be the future of balancing transparency with the right to erase tweets?

Blockchain-verified tweet records, such as Terra Virtua’s “digital tattoo tech,” are one possible innovation. They permanently log deleted tweets on the blockchain while still allowing front-end tweet deletion. This could provide users with visibility curation plus indelibly transparent archives.

Similarly, social networks that come and go, like Snapchat, which erases posts in 24 hours, could also become popular to avoid potential permanent branding influences brought on by seemingly casual posts. Screenshots are still taken, but these apps attract users who want discretion.

In parallel to this, private message platforms such as WhatsApp could expand their scale of use to provide more intimate sharing of messages with family and friends. It may become the true ephemeral and hidden part of online presence.

Ultimately, tweet deletion is likely to stay personal branding. But public tweet archives like this provide transparency, too. We can expect the future to imagine information permanency without compromising user privacy.

Conclusion

In a time of personal branding, social media histories, including erased tweets,s have long-lasting effects on public memory and reputation. Managing free speech against repercussions calls for subtle archiving.

Still, careful tweeting and restricted deletion help to reduce the need for intervention alone. An online presence's authenticity corresponds with incentives for all the participants. On Twitter, context and moderation help personal branding the most.

Emerging tech like blockchains offers creative transparency solutions, too, so the ground is shifting. But at their core, spaces like Twitter remain about factual human exchange. Thus, collective responsibility still offers the soundest way forward.