My teenage daughter was embarrassed when I asked her to “clean up” her Facebook wall the other day. She had no idea that the new texting feature on Facebook was posting messages publicly instead of privately. While you might think this to be an issue that is more prominent with teens that us professional entrepreneurs, I beg to differ.
I noticed a Twitter friend of mine this morning posting a reply to the Twitterverse that displayed his irritation at being tagged “just to get me to read the article.” This seems to be a regular issue on Facebook with people tagging more prominent “Facebookers” to get into their news feeds and in front of more people.
In case you are still fairly new to Facebook and the world of social media, tagging is the ability to “label” your content that you share within your social networking & content sharing sites. While “tagging” on many sites is often a personal labeling system, on some of the networking sites, it is very public and very powerful. With the power comes responsibility. So here are three simple suggestions to protect yourself from harmful or irritating tagging on Facebook.
1. Adjust your privacy settings. On Facebook, there are 5 types of privacy settings: Profile, Search, Feeds, & Friend Requests/Activities, and Applications. I highly recommend that everyone using Facebook adjust their privacy settings strategically–based on who you want to see what. This is especially important for photos, videos and notes tagged with you as well as your news feed that includes all activity pertaining to you.
2. Review your wall daily. This may seem like a nuisance, but a 15 second scan of your wall can avoid embarrasing ads and messages that some of your “less than stellar” friends may consider funny. Remove these items daily.
3. Be informed. Adjust your email/text notifications so that when someone tags you or posts on your wall, you are notified immediately and can either respond or remove the information.
Whether you are a student or a professional, you need to be strategic with everything you do and say in your social networking. As my good friend, Mari Smith, says, don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want your grandmother or your great grandkids to know about you. Also, don’t post anything that you wouldn’t want posted on the front page of the New York Times. Thanks, Mari, for that great advice.
This is my simple list of 3 steps to safeguard yourself against unwanted tagging. Let me know if you have any more suggestions.