Today we want to give you 5 tips on how to protect yourself on Facebook. With an ever increasing population on Facebook, it’s becoming more important to be aware of how your information is being shared and who you accept to be your friends.
1. Status Updates
Have you ever updated your status with your new phone number? Although this is an easy way of letting your friends know, you don’t want to let ALL of your friends know, do you?A good rule of thumb is to not put any personal information like phone numbers and addresses in your status updates. If your friends really need that information or if you really want to give that to them, send a message.
2. Adding Photos/Videos
When uploading, you can tag your friends but ask yourself if they would want to be tagged – if you’re not sure then send them a message and ask. It’s easy to do and it avoids having someone tagged when they didn’t want to be. This mutual respect is an important factor in making the experience on Facebook as positive and safe as possible for you and your friends.
3. Importing Blog Posts
Facebook gives you the option to import your external blog so your friends can read your blog posts (called ‘Notes’ in Facebook). But, be careful. If you’re importing from your blog make sure that your privacy settings on your blog match those of Facebook. For example, if your blog is private and requires users to sign in (ie Opendiary) but your Facebook profile is public, then your notes are now available for everyone to read.
4. Wall Posts
Posting on your friends’ wall. We all do it. And with the ability to comment on their status, we do that too. But something which we shouldn’t do is to say something private on their wall or status. Send that in a message. As much as you think people care about how sorry you are for your friend, they don’t.
5. Updating Your Profile
Having information in your profile will give your friends a sense of who you are but you can provide too much information. Because your profile is viewable by your friends means that whatever information you have included (including phone number, address and email address) is available to them. Facebook has a great feature called Lists which you can use to separate your friends based on specific criteria. Some examples include friends, family, business. The benefits of using Lists is that you can restrict your business list from viewing certain photos, videos and other parts of your profile. We will be posting a video next week showing you how to use Lists to segment your friends list.
Being mindful of your privacy settings protects you and your friends. By understanding how the different components of Facebook work, we become a more informed consumer and ultimately will help make Facebook more user friendly, relevant and safe for its users.
Would you share your phone number with all your friends? Let us know what you think!