10 WAYS TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA PROPERLY

#1 Your posts shouldn’t be hurtful or insulting.

  • Your posts on forums like Facebook and Twitter reflect your thinking and personality. While you are certainly entitled to your opinions and to share them, you must keep in mind that your posts might hurt or insult others. It can also give employers a negative opinion about you if the majority of your posts are of a negative perspective.Friendships have been broken due to people posting hurtful comments on social sites. Avoid doing or saying anything online that can offend your friends, or posting a vague analysis of a similar situation they may be going through with negative comments. More often than not, everyone knows who you’re talking about and it can only end badly.

#2 Understand privacy settings and use them effectively.

  • Most social sites have effective privacy settings, yet, most of the users don’t understand how to use the privacy options. Privacy settings can be used to limit your audience. who can see your posts. It is advisable that you read the privacy setting terms and use those to your advantage.However, you must realize that your posts can then be shared. For example, your friend may take a screenshot of a private post and publish it publicly. And that brings us to the next point.

#3 Practice caution about what you reveal about yourself online.

  • Your personal life is your own. If there are certain aspects of your life that you don’t want others to know about, don’t share it on the social media. Most social media sites require you to put in your name, birthday, etc., but you can choose who to share this information with, as mentioned earlier. So it is in your hands how much you want to reveal about yourself and with whom. If you don’t trust an app with your information, don’t use that app.Remember that any information that you share publicly can be found online by anyone. Someone wishing to harm you may be able to find your social media profile and share it negatively.

#4 Make the most of private messages or emails for personal communications.

  • If there is something you want to talk to your friend about without letting the entire world know, use the personal messaging services. Most social media websites are equipped with a personal messaging system or chat options.Always navigate the site and get to know it’s public, private, and messaging settings before you post anything to make sure that you know exactly where it will be going. There was an incident that went viral regarding to a student  and her date. After steamy night, she sent her date a message explaining how she felt and used a lot of inappropriate language; however, she did not write it in the message at all, she unknowingly posted to his Facebook wall where everyone could see. Eventually it was posted all over the Internet and this will hunt this woman for the rest of her life.

#5 Dictate how people can find you online.

  • Most social media websites give you the option to choose how people online can find you, for example via email address, phone number, etc. You can limit the amount of people who can search for using your email address. The sites also have an option to allow your profile to be found on search engines. If you prefer to reduce your online footprint, you can set this option to no.to further limit who can access your true location and benefit from accessing your information. Remember to set your location settings on a social networking sites to decide whether or not your location appears alongside your status update.Your personal life can be affected by your online presence on social media websites. Therefore, use privacy settings and post personal information and opinions sparingly.

#6 Learn how sites can use your information

  • Social network sites are typically free to use which means they are making their money by advertising to you.  And that means they are collecting information about you.   Is your information shared with outside companies and partners? What information can third-party plug-in software, such as Facebook Applications, use from your profile or page content? Review the site’s privacy policy and watch closely the privacy settings you can control.

#7 Customize privacy options

  • Social networking sites increasingly give users more control over their own privacy settings. Don’t assume you have to take whatever default settings the site gives you. Check out the settings, configuration and privacy sections to see what options you have to limit who and what groups can see various aspects of your personal information. Facebook probably has some of the broadest privacy options, giving you control where no one, friends, friends and networks, or everyone can see basic info, personal info, photos, friends and postings.

 

#8 Don’t trust, just verify

  • There are lots of reasons why someone might impersonate or falsify an identity online. It could be as a prank or for such as those who  impersonate a celebrity as satire. Faking an identity has a legit side too  it can be used by people who simply want to  conceal who they are in order to protect their real  identities. But its also the first step of those who  want to  embarrass or defame someone else by impersonating them, or steal an identity for financial gain or other crimes. The question becomes, how can you verify that the page  page belongs to who you think it does before sharing too much information or clicking on links? Start by being  on the lookout for anything unusual or out of the ordinary. If the content on the site doesn’t  look like or sound like  the person you know.  E-mail or call your friend to  verify the site is legit. Let them know, too, if you think someone else is  faking your friend’s identity online.

#9 Control comments

  • Blogs are beginning to use authenticated commenting systems. It probably happens more often than we think. Commenting systems allow users to make anonymous or unregistered comments, or registered users can login and leave the comment as a verified user, letting others know it really is them. Contact the site administrator immediately if you find someone is impersonating you on a social networking site or in blog comments. Most reputable sites will take down the impersonated content.  If they won’t remove the content, ask that they note you’ve contacted them indicating you didn’t leave the comment or personal page.

#10 create content people actually want to see

  • If you want to stand out on social media, you can’t just parrot the content everyone else is posting.In short, you need to create.Whether you’re trying to build yourself up as a thought leader or want to stand apart from your competitors, original content is exactly how you’re going to make it happen.Perhaps it’s your original blog posts, research or infographics. Maybe it’s an eye-popping snapshot you took during your last vacation.Or it might be an opinionated rant on the state of your industry.Either way, you should strive to post content that forces your followers to stop in their tracks. There’s a lot of noise out here on social media: make it a goal to break through it.

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