At this time of the year, people often become motivated to “spruce up” their LinkedIn profile or perhaps create a business page on Facebook for their company.

However, they sometimes want to tinker a bit with their profile without others seeing the “draft” versions. Or they may want to keep their business page under wraps until they are ready for others to see it on Facebook.

If you want to temporarily hide your social media presence for these or any other reasons, here’s how to do it:

Closeup young businesswoman hiding sitting in the carton box working on laptop computer

Hide Your LinkedIn Profile

  • Go to your Privacy and Settings section (visible when you hover your cursor over the small photo of you at the top right of your page).
  • Click on Edit Your Public Profile, which is found in the column called Settings.
  • On the right side of the page a list of options will appear. Click the empty circle to the left of “Make my public profile visible to no one.”
  • Now you are the only person who can see your profile.
  • When you finish your updates be sure to change this setting back to the default setting of “Make my public profile visible to everyone.”
  • It’s best to make yourself visible again as quickly as possible, or people will wonder what happened to you, so don’t “go dark” until you know what changes you want to make and have the time to make them.
  • When you return to visibility, be sure there is a check mark in the box to the left of each section of your profile to ensure that all sections reappear.

 

Unpublish Your Facebook Business Page

  • Go to your page and click on Settings. The second option is Page Visibility.
  • Click on the word Edit, located to the right of this setting.
  • Then click on the box to the left of the words “Unpublish this page.”
  • Now click Save.
  • Now only you can see your business page.
  • Once you are ready for your updates to be revealed, go back to Settings and click on Edit again.
  • Then click on the box with the check mark in it – removing the check mark.
  • Now click Save.

 

How About You?

Have you used either or both of these features? When you have a LinkedIn profile or a Facebook business page in a draft status, are you OK with others seeing the “work in progress?”

 

About Joyce

Joyce Feustel, Founder of Boomers' Social Media Tutor

Joyce Feustel helps people, especially those age 50 and up, to become more comfortable using social media, especially Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter.

She works with business owners, business development professionals, leaders of nonprofit organizations, job seekers, retired people, consultants, and many others. Find her at www.boomerssocialmediatutor.com.