How to Stay Secure on Social Media Platforms?

Social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc have become integral parts of our lives. It is one of the most influential platforms that will improve your socializing ability and let you connect with your friends and families within a few clicks.

Apart from this, social media platforms can also help you grow your business and boost your online visibility among your targeted web audience. You can promote your brand/products/services by posting images, small video or a snippet of a relevant content on social networking sites to grab more attention for higher conversions and increased sales.

But with all the benefits and user-friendly functionalities, it becomes essential for you to consider the security of your social networking account. You can’t overlook this aspect, especially if your account is highly vulnerable to security threats such as hacking, stalking, bullying or any other type of theft.

To overcome such situations, you will need to consider the following tips that will keep you safe on social media websites. No matter what platform you are using, just trail these tips carefully:

Modify Your Privacy Settings

Since all the social media websites have their own default privacy settings, make sure you strengthen it as per your own convenience.

Customizing privacy settings can help you in many ways. You can secure your personal social media account, and restrict strangers from viewing your images or any other information.

For an example, Facebook lets the account holder customize their settings so only their friends listed in the Facebook account see their new posts and images.

This ensures an improved security for all social media account holders.

Never Share Your Personal Details

There are many microblogging websites that encourage users to share their personal details (such as email address, contact number, etc) to login to new fun-loving pages or activates.

For social media users who love such types of activities can easily give their personal social media account details. This makes their accounts vulnerable to cyber attacks and other offensive activities.

As these networks are visible to everyone, make sure you don’t give any information related to your account.

Always Know Who You Are Connecting With

You should always know the authenticity of the other person with whom you are connecting on a social networking site. As you don’t know whether the other person is trustable or not, you can’t share your personal details or any other relevant information.

To know the authenticity of an account holder (especially strangers), ensure that you check with the individual for verification. By staying away from fake accounts can enhance your security on social media platforms.

Don’t Get Too Much Friendly

It is always good to make new friends and followers when you are in a social networking group as a member. You can search for new friends and even follow other people. But, sometimes, this creates a lot of problems as you don’t know that the other person is reliable or not.

Obviously, it is impossible to have all the right and positive friends. There would be some friends that could harm your web presence or have some or the other criminal intentions in mind. So, make sure you carefully accept the friend requests.

Manage Your Comments Wisely

Commenting is one of the great ways to improve the visibility on social media websites. It allows users to leave anonymous comments or let registered users to login and leave the comment as a verified users. But, sometimes, impersonation can create a serious problem – as such people are misrepresented on web.

You can immediately contact the admin of the site if you find someone is impersonating on social media sites. You can ask them to remove impersonated content from your site.

Delete Old Accounts

There is so much fun in signing up new social media websites and linking to new people. But the problem is that every signing up process ask you some personal information related to your email address, contact number and accounts on other social media.

This sucks the whole situation. When you stop using some of these sites, make sure you delete them. It can create some serious issues related to the security. So, it is better to clean them up – that you don’t use often.

Never Share Your Location

Location-awareness services are incredible in this digital era, but ensure that you turn off broadcast features that tell social networks that where you are at a particular time. They reveal the exact location of yours, which could create security issues for you.

Even, don’t post a note on any social network that where you are going on vacation. This allows criminals to reach your home. It’s better to share the photos once you get back to the home from your trip.

Use Limited Work History Details

It won’t be a good idea to upload your full resume on social media websites. It would allow thieves to use the information to fill out a loan application or even they can guess a password security question.

So, it is better limited your work history details on websites such as LinkedIn. In case you want to add extra information to search a reliable job, you can expand the details during the job search process and then remove it after you got a position.

Luckily, LinkedIn comes with some inbuilt capabilities to let to limit the information. You can turn off access by others to your network of contacts. Most of the sales professional and recruiters leverage this option as they don’t want to reveal their valuable network to others.

Never Trap Into The Popularity Contest

Keep yourself away from those people who have a ton of friends on their social media profile. Such people possible include strangers, who can also access your information if you become friends with that person.

It is better to accept those who are your real friends or have become your friends.

Conclusion

It’s in your hands whether you want to safely surf social networking sites or just go freely without any security. Being a social media user, you should consider these security tips and keep yourself away from suspicious activities and elements.