Archive for privacy settings

Are you a RULE BREAKER? Know Your Facebook Rights and Wrongs

By Lissa Duty

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

I must start with a big WOW! And GREAT job to Facebook.

They have been the topic of blog posts, comments and status updates far and wide since they rolled out the new changes last week.

Instead of writing about those changes, I want to make sure you Know your Facebook Rights and Wrongs. Ask yourself these questions about your Facebook account:

Do you have one login to Facebook or two?
Do you have a separate login you use to maintain your professional profile/fan page?
Did you actually read Facebook’s Statement of Rights when you created your account?

Perhaps these questions puzzle you. What I am going to say now is for the RULE BREAKERS and those they don’t realize they are being RULE BREAKERS. You are not allowed to have two Facebook personal profile accounts according to Facebook Statement of Rights.

If you have two registered accounts and Facebook finds out they will shut both accounts down and your fan page if you are the only administrator. I know I am saying this harshly, but I have found I have to be direct to get my point across. I encourage you to read it yourself here Facebook’s Statement of Rights – Check out section #4.

Still not motivated to close that account second account? Read more – They Can do What to My Facebook Personal Profile?, blog post from fellow social media professional and friend, Sandy Norton. Some good info here about Facebook pages also.

I know exactly what you are thinking right now:

“I want to keep my personal friends separate from business. I don’t want my professional connections to see updates from my grandchildren”

No, I am not psychic. I have just heard it over and over again, hundreds of times. You can have the best of both worlds.

Assign your friends to Facebook lists and customize your privacy settings based on those lists. You can also use a Facebook Fan Page. I recommend you do both.

Here is what you need to do:

Create some lists – The Why & The How to using Facebook Lists to customize your Facebook experience! will tell you how.
Customize your Privacy Settings – One of My Facebook Secrets will get you started. It is important that you understand each portion of your privacy settings. Ask a friend or hire a professional to train you on what every things means if you have difficulty with this. I teach two hour Facebook training sessions for this exact reason.

While I am going over Facebook’s Statement of Rights notice item #4 under section #4 in Facebook Statement of Rights since you will be using your personal profile for professional connections. It says:

You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).

This is another big Facebook NO-NO! You should not post status updates on your Facebook profile that are sales pitches. It is against their Statement of Rights and they will shut your account down and again, you could lose your Fan Page.

Now that I have said that, I must say this:

Share information on your Facebook personal profile that is news about your business (not a special you are offering). Perhaps a blog post you have just published, you are excited and would like your friends feedback or business accomplishment/recognition you received.

Share it as an emotion vs. selling. There is no guarantee Facebook will not consider it a violation of the Statement of Rights, but it is an approach I use and it works well for me (Thanks Sandy for your reminder about adding this – I had it on my TO DO list to expand more on this idea.)

Of course you can share blog posts of others to attract your ideal client and interest your professional connections. Check out my Facebook profile for ideas on the kinds of posts I share and how I post about my work without selling.

Here are a few blog posts to educate you more about last week’s Facebook Changes:

Blog post by ShellyKramer applies to your Facebook Profile and your Fan Page How NOT to be Invisible on the New Facebook Newsfeed

Blog post by Natalie Macneil on the changes for Facebook Business Pages – New Facebook Pages: Tips to Make Your Page Rock

I encourage you to share these blog posts on your Facebook profile. I take personal responsibility for educating my friends and keeping them in the KNOW on Facebook. I hope you do the same!

It’s your turn! Post any comments, questions, or blog posts you think we need to read to learn and understand more about Facebook!

Categories : Facebook

Tags : blog, business, facebook, Facebook Fan pages, facebook lists, Facebook Privacy Settings, Facebook training, Natalie MacNeil, privacy settings, professional connections, Sandy Norton, Shelly Kramer

Are you really secure online? or Do you just think you are?

By Lissa Duty

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Are you secure online? or Do you just think you are?

In teaching social media training sessions, I discuss online security and safety. I especially discuss sharing personal information and privacy settings on Facebook and other social networking sites, i.e. LinkedIn and Twitter.

More often than not, clients and attendees are absolutely convinced their social media profiles are safe and secure. I immediately have them check a few Facebook settings. Then they start to listen closer and start making adjustments to their privacy settings. I haven’t found anyone that doesn’t have at least one thing they should be doing differently. A new set of eyes can provide a perspective and insight you hadn’t thought about.

Before I get started, I need to recognize Michelle Ketterman of The Inventory Experts. Her company inventories residents and business property, furnishings, equipment and valuables. In case of theft, fire, flood, tornado, etc …. Her clients will be able to quickly get their inventory to their insurance company and get all their damaged inventoried items replaced promptly and at a the right value. As Michelle says, “a picture can be worth literally a $1000.” Every time I hear her say this I snicker. What a tagline …. that is another whole blog post! LOL!

While Michelle’s focus is on offline security, she suggested I write a blog post about online security, specifically relating to social media because like many others, she thought her profiles security settings were configured correctly. Needless to say, she realized how unsecure her settings actually were after only 10 minutes of reviewing basic settings with me. With the seemingly constant changes, as part of her normal business, Michelle now has me regularly double check her social media security settings.

I couldn’t cover everything one post, but the following are the most common security threats:

Facebook

Date of Birth. Facebook requires your date of birth, and often people have it set to visible to their Facebook friends. Change this setting to make the year of birth not visible. Several of my clients use a fake year making them a few years younger or older.
Address. Don’t list your physical address on Facebook and don’t share your real city if you live in a small town. i.e. Frisco, Rockwall, Royse City, Allen, etc…. List a major metroplex area like Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, San Francisco. You get the idea. Yes, again, they could probably go out to Google and find your exact address, but let’s not make it easy on them for Pete’s sake!
Information your friends are allowed to share about you. See One of My Facebook Secrets for details how to view and correct this issue.
Friends. Restrict who can see your friend list to at those that are at least your friends already. You can even break this list down further and make it so they can only see mutual friends.

Passwords

Check Microsoft’s website for a strength test on your password .
Still want more on passwords – read this blog post – How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords by John Pozadzides

Do you need a Facebook Privacy Tune Up? In one hour I show you hands-on techniques to optimize your Facebook Privacy Settings (order the Social Media Evaluation). This social media consulting session can focus on what you choose to discuss from Facebook Privacy to content to share on Twitter. You can also get a Tune Up of your Facebook Profile and Privacy settings that I complete independently. Contact me for details Lissa@LissaDuty.com.

In my consulting sessions, the client tells me their needs and the training is focused on those areas. Yes, you read that RIGHT, a social media consultant that will teach you what you want to learn, vs. what they think you need to LEARN!

Now it’s your turn – share a tip below regarding something you learned about your online security and how you fixed it! Look forward to hearing from you!

Categories : Social Media

Tags : facebook, John Pozadzides, linkedin, Lissa Duty, Michelle Ketterman, networking sites, online security, privacy settings, security settings, Social Marketing, Social Media, social media coaching, social media consultant, social media evaluation, social media marketing, social media training, The Inventory Exports, twitter

Archive for privacy settings

Are you a RULE BREAKER? Know Your Facebook Rights and Wrongs

I must start with a big WOW! And GREAT job to Facebook.

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