Social Media Savy

A recent article I read highlighted the risks posed by social media, in particular the huge amounts of personal information we often provide so freely. Being Christmas, I thought it a good time to remind everyone that social media is a public forum. Don’t put things online that you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to know!

Here are a few important tips to keep you, and your family, and house, safe this Christmas:

  1. Don’t post your holiday while on holidays! With Instagram and Facebook so easy to use, we all like to show the view from holiday resort, or beach… But this also tells people your house is unattended!
  2. Keep your personal info – personal! Driver’s license, even dates of birth, don’t need to be published on social media sites. LinkedIn and Facebook have my date of birth, but they are not visible on my profile.
  3. Check your privacy settings! Facebook is a big one for tricky settings. I have customised mine carefully to ensure that anything I post is visible to my friends and family, but not the public. Anything about family, is only posted to my family groups, not my extended friend network.
  4. Keep your passwords safe! Don’t give out your passwords or usernames to anyone. It is best to have social media passwords that are different from other, important ones! I have one password I use for social media (even though it is recommended to have different ones) so I can remember – when using social media, its XYZ…
  5. Don’t connect with strangers. Seems simple enough, but would you like someone you don’t know to be monitoring your day-to-day life? Even worse, I had a uni “friend” I agreed to “add” on Facebook, he immediately added all of my social friends, who accepted based on him “knowing Ryan”. Now – un-adding him, he still can see my comments and posts, and track the social lives of my friends. You never know…

That all aside, I hope you have a great Christmas and look forward to the new year being prosperous and full of opportunity for you – even on social media!