Facebook is a great platform for those who are looking for new friends, finding old ones or to promote their business.
In fact, Facebook drives more traffic on websites than Google but did you know using Facebook can also create a lot of problems at work or invade your privacy and let’s not forget stalkers keeping track of things you post on your profile.
Here are few things you should avoid doing or be careful about before logging onto Facebook or any other social media platform.
1- Threat to your Job
People often tend to add everyone they know on Facebook and among these people are their employers.
Posting informal things while having an employer in your friend list is not a good idea, any content you share that is not according to their liking can land you in trouble and this has happened to an employee in 2013 when a school driver shared a post on Facebook discussing school’s policy on providing lunch to the children and found himself fired from his job.
In all probability, someone from school’s administration had seen the driver’s post or take this lady (Claire Shepherd) as an example who was fired from her dream job after revealing hidden tattoos on her body.
This woman got her dream job and was fired 30 minutes later because she looks like this. http://t.co/3TWOU26hQu pic.twitter.com/4xBS73PVoi
— someecards (@someecards) September 28, 2015
She then used Facebook to post about what happened to her:
If you have someone in your list from the workplace just put them on a restricted list and avoid getting in trouble.
2- You can be on a thieves hit list
Posting a status on Facebook is a must when going out for holidays, isn’t it? For many people, this is like a ritual and thieves are looking out for people like you!
Yes, by letting them know that you are off for a holiday, you are inviting them to come to your home and have anything they need. But, how do they get this information when you know all the people in your friend list are clear?
There is an easy way to do it, when you type in some keywords on facebook search you easily stumble over people who have these words in their status. So, there is a room wide open for them.
Take the example of Keri McMullen, who posted a simple status message that she was going to see a band with her fiancé. It only took the burglars calling the venue to find out what time the show was to let them know when they could break into her home. The burglars showed up 35 minutes after the McMullens left for the concert.
But, you can protect yourself from this by making your posts available only for the people in your friend list. Although, the majority of people on Facebook have never visited Facebook privacy setting which is a real worry!
3- Some elements are always public
You can play around with your privacy settings on Facebook as much as you like, but there are certain things you cannot hide.
Two of these are your profile picture and cover photo. These 2 things cannot be hidden from anyone so if you put in something private on your Facebook cover or photo please avoid it because spammers and hackers can use it against you.
One more thing, all your friend’s friends can see your activity so anything that is not according to their liking can cause you strife. So, be very careful about whatever you share or write about on Facebook.
But, most important of all and without even wasting a second, edit your privacy settings in a way that you can securely enjoy your life on Facebook without having any kind of trouble.
If you have more tips on Facebook privacy hit us an email on [email protected].