Tips for Keeping Your Social Media Secure

Are you paranoid about the safety of your images, content and friend lists on your social media accounts? Today, some people have 1-5 personal accounts on different platforms (think Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat) as well as 1-5 accounts for their business. A lot of personal and professional information is being shared across these platforms and it is essential that you are following these most basic security rules to keep your information and identity safe.

1. Use strong and distinct passwords: A unique password for each account, social media and otherwise, that you have online, is essential. Moreover, avoid using passwords that include anything personal (i.e. your pets name, your kids name, your childhood home phone number), and instead choose a random series of numbers and letters and punctuation that cannot be predicted by hackers.
2. Use two-factor authentication: Just another thing to do right? Nope. An essential thing to do! By simply adding your phone number or a backup email address to your accounts you can easily enable two-factor authentication and thus prevent hackers (or angry ex’s, or snoopy parents…) to access your accounts if they find out your password.
3. Be cautious with third-party applications: We can’t count the number of times we download an app only to be asked to grant that app permission to see our friend list or post on our behalf on our social media. While you might be tempted to say yes yes yes and get sharing all the cool things you are up to automatically through these apps, we would highly recommend being very selective when it comes to authorizing third-party applications to access, read and share on your social media platforms. Take five minutes now and login to all of your social mind platforms to check and see who you maybe have inadvertently granted permission to already. You might just be surprised at what you find.
4. Don’t be friends with everyone: We have all experienced it – a complete stranger, albeit handsome, tries to add us as a friend. They have limited information on their profile, you have no mutual friends and you have no idea how you know them. Rather than clicking ‘accept’ and hoping that it is the man of your dreams, kindly decline. Often fake accounts are used for anything from cyber bullying, to creating clone accounts (this actually happened to one of our Skyfall Blue staff members!) or send you files that are corrupted with a virus.
5. Get familiar with your privacy settings: We can’t count the number of business owners we have worked with who have never even opened the privacy settings in their social media accounts. Unless you want the entire world to see your engagement photos and the ultrasound photo of your new grandson, set your privacy settings to close friends and family, rather than public.

Too scared to tackle the world of social media for your business alone? Call our team today and learn how we can do it in a safe, effective and impactful manner for you.