Stay Safe on Social Media

Social media has brought the world closer than ever before. There are certain steps users should take to keep their information secure. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter record everything you do online. Even if you post, edit or delete a tweet, the internet will always keep a virtual copy. Here's an all-inclusive guide to increase privacy on social media.

Better privacy begins with your passwords

There will be a worse effect on digital marketing agencies that use weak passwords and have very little cyber security protocols. Did you know that more than 55 percent of internet users use the same password for every site? Imagine how easy it would be for someone to access your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail account simply by using the same password.

Free apps like LastPass, will be a great help if you have to keep track of dozens of different passwords. Users are able to keep all their various passwords secure by creating a Master Key. So users only need to remember one password instead of remembering a handful of passwords.

Two-factor authentication also adds extra privacy settings to your accounts. The Two-factor authentication prevents unauthorized users from using your account–even if they have your passwords.

Staying Safe on Facebook

Quick facts:

• Users on Facebook every day - 1.18 billion.
• Active users on Facebook - 1.79 billion.
• 84.9% users live outside the US.

Here are a few quick tips to help get you started

1. Keep your posts for family and friends only

There are lot of user’s information shared on Facebook (name, phone number, job, residence, relationship status, etc.) So it's important to delegate your posts to your friends and family. You can easily do this by going under your Settings menu and click the Privacy section and change who sees your posts to "Friends Only".

2. Change your settings so strangers can't look you up

It is important to make your profile private apart from making your posts private. In order to keep strangers from looking you up, change your settings by clicking Settings menu. From there, click on Privacy and next to the Who Can Look Me Up section make sure set it to "Friends Only".

3. Hide your friends to protect their privacy too!

You have to make an additional step to remove your friends from the public eye. For hiding friends list from public, go to your friend list and under the Edit Privacy settings select the "Only Me" setting for who can see your friends.

Staying Safe on Instagram

Quick facts:

• Monthly users – More than 500 million.
• Pictures shared by users - over 40 billion.
• Purchased by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012.
• 80% of Instagram users are outside US.

Ever since it was purchased by Facebook back in 2012, Instagram had undergone a lot of updates. The new Instagram Stories feature gives users more opportunities to share, tag and follow friends, enemies and strangers alike. However, being a photo app means users are constantly broadcasting highly personal information out into the world wide web.

1. Make sure you turn your location information off

Always turn off the location information. If you're going to post on Instagram, it is good to hide exactly where you are at any given moment. It is unsafe to tell the strangers where you are at any given moment.

2. Make friends with the block function

The block feature helps users to remove people who post rude or obnoxious comments from your social media feed. It also prevents them from viewing your posts. Yes, these people can create new accounts to stalk you, but to deal with that you all need to do is change your account from public to private.

3. Think about setting your account to private

Setting your account to private will help keep your account safe from strangers. Someone has to request access to your account if you choose the private feature. So you can choose who's out and who's in. It helps to increase your privacy settings by giving you more control over who's able to see and comment on your pics.

Staying Safe on Twitter

Quick facts:

• Nearly 35,000 tweets per minute
• Twitter users - 310 million monthly

A few months ago, Twitter actually updated their safety.

1. Don't add your location to your tweets

By choosing to add your location to your tweets, you open the door for public to intrude into your privacy or stalk you. To hide your location information, go to the Settings menu and click the Privacy and safety section and uncheck the box "Add a location to my tweets."

2. Make sure you actually use Twitter's privacy and security options

Sometimes it's better to keep your tweets private. Twitter actually gives you the option to delegate which ones you want to remain private and which tweets you want to make public. Take advantage of this feature. Remember, your public tweets always stay online, so think twice before sending out your public opinions.

3. Choose which tweets to make public and which to make private

Like Facebook, Twitter also offers users the ability to tight up their privacy settings. To increase your privacy, you should not include additional information like your email address and phone number in your profile. You can also clear your contact information by going to Settings and privacy section and clicking on Privacy and safety. From there, scroll down to Manage your contacts to remove your contact which are pre-filled. You can avoid "who to follow" popups by removing your contact information.

You'll be able to post in Social Medias without revealing too much information by taking the time to update your social media accounts and increasing your privacy.

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