Social Networks: What Not To Share

By: Michael Cohn

The most effective way to communicate with colleagues, friends, and to network to establish new relationships, either business or personal, nowadays is through social networks. However, this should be done carefully.
There are more than 100 social networking sites that connect people all over the world, people who are excited about sharing their feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The sharing of ideas is great when used appropriately; however, too much information (TMI) can lead to problems.

A good example of this is with Facebook. If a person sends you a message via Facebook, you will receive an Email from Facebook that tells you that that person wrote on your wall and you will be asked to click on the link to Facebook. Once you are in Facebook, if you click on “write something,” your reply will be seen by everyone. If, on the other hand, you reply only to that person (you will see the option to reply only to that person in Facebook), he or she will be the only one to read your reply.

There are several other things that you shouldn’t share on your social networks, which we will discuss below.

Your password
You would think that everyone would know not to share their password with anyone. However, it happens much more than you think. It may seem like an innocent thing to do when you feel that you trust someone who is close to you but later on, it might become a huge problem. Unfortunately, you have put yourself into a position where all of your important information is potentially at risk.

Hints about your password
If you should happen to post this type of information on any of your social networking sites, you are giving the key to identity thieves. That may be the missing information that they are waiting to get their hands on. It is important to think long and hard before you post anything that might compromise your information.

Your contact information
Giving out your address and phone number to people whom you don’t know well or don’t know at all is a security risk. A very serious situation that can stem from this is that your identity could be stolen. The identity thieves are very sophisticated in how they go about stealing information.

Your birth year
It is never a good idea to publish the year that you were born on your social networks just in case your profile information will be seen by potential employers. It is totally fine to publish the month and day of your birth, however.

Personal photographs
It is common for people to post photos of their children on their social networking sites. If you are one of those people and you have not restricted access to your profile, everyone can see the photos. This is very dangerous because of the number of predators who use the internet to search for their prey. You certainly would not want to put your children at any risk.

Your personal financial information
It is never a good idea to share any information that is connected to your finances. There can be serious repercussions from your posting a seemingly innocent comment regarding your finances. If the wrong person reads it, they can create all sorts of chaos for you and it will be a nightmare for you to sort it all out.

Revealing your social plans
It is not a good idea to share your social plans with everyone on your social networks unless you are discussing a party or gathering and have included all of your contacts on the social network site. If that isn’t the case, you will most likely offend those not included and may lose them altogether.

Site linking
The danger of posting information on one of your social network sites that is linked to others is that you may not want the information to be viewed by everyone. For example, if you put some personal detail about yourself on Facebook and it is linked to LinkedIn, not only can your friends view the information but your employer(s) can also view it. That could potentially hurt you in your job.

Information about the company where you work
You should always consider news about the company that you work for confidential. If you were to post information about the company on one of your social networks and a competing company was to read it, it could endanger your position and could possibly have dire consequences.

Any information that you don’t want others to share
Even if you select privacy settings on your social networking sites, if you post information that you don’t want shared, it still has the potential to be viewed by others. For example, if you take surveys or play games in the social networking sites, the people who created those surveys or games have access to your information as soon as you have finished taking the surveys or playing the games. If you are ever unsure about whether you should post certain information, it’s safer not to post it.

About the Author

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications, a consulting company specializing in developing communication strategies for small businesses that require expertise in promoting a unique business voice and vision on the Internet.

(ArticlesBase SC #1798454)

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