Morada Musings

Privacy – it’s something we all agree that we care about to one degree or another.  The problem is that some of us are much more sensitive than others around what we consider private.  This can lead to real problems in the realm of social media where we are encouraged to mingle, share and make new friends.  Fortunately, there are ways in each site to keep control over who sees how much but there are limits, and it’s important to know what they are.  A good yardstick to use – would you want your children or grandchildren to see this today, or 5, 10, even 20 years from now?   If not, don’t post it!  This includes photos, videos and links as well as your words.  You may intend something one way but others may take it – and use it – in an entirely different manner.

Twitter:  Some people become confused by “strangers” who suddenly appear in their list of followers and wonder how this happens.  Simple – they either did a topic or keyword search which brought you into a results news stream and they liked what they read, or they saw one of your tweets (or a retweet (RT) you made of someone else’s post) that piqued their interest so they decided they’d like to see what else you have to say. Before you agree to follow them back, take the time to check out their profile, visit their web site if they have one and try to get a sense of what the common connection might be.  If it looks like you might find them interesting or helpful, follow them and send a Direct Message (DM) being sure to include something personal (i.e. “I see we share an interest in…”)

Sometimes, however, these folks are just trolling for someone new to market to and aren’t really interested in developing a rapport.  You’ll usually know it right away because they’ll send you a sales message without so much as a howdy-do.  Feel free to “unfollow” those people and delete any DM’s they send.  They can still follow you, however, and if that makes you uncomfortable, you have the option of blocking them.  This removes them from your news stream and you from theirs as well as preventing direct messages between you.  Make sure you want to do this because once it’s done, it’s not easily undone.

Facebook:  Here you have many more controls you can set, both globally and on the “granular” level.  One of the easiest ways to handle this is to create lists based on meaningful criteria such as personal, professional, civic or business organization, geographic location – whatever you might use to make connection with them, or determine how private you want to be with that group of people.   For example, I have a list for personal (which includes family and close friends), church (people I know and interact with regularly but with whom I am not necessarily intimate) and professional (which includes my VA colleagues as well as business contacts, potential clients, and as-yet-unknown friends.)

On your profile home page, in the upper right on the blue bar you’ll see Settings.  When you click on that, one of the choices you’ll have is Privacy.  Under that heading you’ll see the different areas where you can set privacy levels – Profile (who can see which parts of your information), News feed and Wall (what Recent Activity is visible on your profile and in your friends’ home pages), Search (who can search for you, what they can see, and how they can contact you), and Applications (what information is available to applications you use on Facebook.)  Within each of these areas there are even more specific choices, and this is where the lists can make it much easier; “Custom” is one of the options you are given and your lists give you a ready made way to choose.

There isn’t the space here to go through all of the Facebook privacy settings but I will be covering it in detail in my newsletter.   Signing up is easy – just go up there to the left and fill in your name and emails address.  Be assured – it’s for my use only and won’t be shared with anyone else; I hate unsolicited mail as much as you do.

Next time I will give you an overview of some of the features and add-on applications for both Facebook and Twitter.