Social Media Safety: Ten Best Practices

The big discussion on the impact of social media these days seems to be focused on privacy and how much is left when everything gets posted to Facebook, Twitter and the like. But there are still ways to keep your friends and colleagues informed about your activities without taking significant personal safety risks. Here are ten important things NOT to do with social media, in an effort to keep you, your friends and family safe. Most are common sense, but it can be easy to forget when juggling tasks.

Just remember: when in doubt, don't post.

10. Don't blast to the world that you'll be traveling. If you take a trip, just post about the event while you're there and maybe report back with more detail when you return; or if you must post that you're at a conference or live tweet from that, make sure to tweet about your house-sitter too.

9. Don't publicize where you are when you're with your kids. Techmama, Beth Blecherman says this is a big one that parents tend to forget. Although most child snatchers may not have made surfing Twitter a part of their daily practices, it's only a matter of time until there's a case that traces back to social media tipping off kidnappers and the like. You can say you're at the park ... just don't specify which park.

8. Don't put your phone number or email address in your profile on Twitter or other public feeds unless you code it somehow or send it privately through direct messages. Same thing goes for LinkedIn or Facebook accounts that let anyone become 'friends'.

7. Don't post angry feelings (don't air your dirty laundry); take it offline. In particular, don't blast companies too vocally. Be careful when criticizing; you could be be sued for libel if you post something inflammatory. Even if you can back it up with evidence, most major corporations have a lot of money at their disposal to take down opposition.

6. Don't post or forward links without double-checking their accuracy. You don't accidentally want to send colleagues to porn sites when you retweet. (And be careful of some of the URL shorteners in this respect.)

5. Don't allow all third party applications access to your accounts without verifying authenticity and making sure you need to be connected. And be careful how much linking you do between accounts for posting purposes; you could accidentally send personal posts out to public corporate feeds if you employ multiple accounts for personal and business use.

4. Don't share your password or use the same password on multiple social media accounts. That's a really easy way for hackers and identity thieves to get a vast amount of information about you quickly.

3. Don't post photos or videos of your children on public feeds (at least not very often, and maybe not of their faces). This is something many parent bloggers learned early on -- it's best not to share images of your children if at all possible.

2. Don't ever post photos of yourself drinking or doing anything that you wouldn't want published in the local newspaper. If it's on Facebook, assume even if your settings are technically private, someone else could share it with the world. If you're friends with any co-workers or colleagues, that kind of thing could easily pose professional risks.

1. Don't drink and post. You'll regret it in the morning.

By Sarah Granger, Digital Landing