Social Media, a Word to the Wise

Privacy and Social Media

Social media is a valuable tool for branding businesses and individuals alike, but equally important is managing privacy.  Privacy protection is not just for masking that drunken picture or hiding that 'royal slip-up’.  It can save both your brand and identity.

From the experts

Randall Craig, a renowned Toronto social media consultant, author and speaker, consistently mentions Google searches and notifications as a critical part of managing your brand online.  Another asset of this tracking method is to identify sites making a mint off of your information without your permission.  In his Make It Happen (MIH) Tipsheets and the 5th Edition of his book “Online PR and Social Media for experts”, Randall mentions over a dozen sites that do this, but yet a new monster has arisen. 

The Privacy Hackers

Yatedo.com is yet another site that compiles and publishes your information online for anyone to “find you”.  As with similar sites, Yatedo.com allows one to “claim this profile”.  There’s little by way of security to ensure that the person claiming this profile is actually you, which makes it an attractive feature for potential saboteurs.  This would be particularly important to public figures, prominent businesses or anyone with rivals.

One feature of Yatedo.com that allows you to limit the damage is that it sources information primarily from other Social Media sites, and the developers allege that if you reduce the data available, they will continue to update this Yatedo.com profile to reflect these changes.  My attempt to do so has failed, thus far, but some comfort may be found in the fact that you can minimize the damage by limiting your accessibility.

On Social Media Channels

Facebook allows you to prevent your account from being found on search engines with little effort.  Many Linkedin.com forums, however, suggest that ‘you can’t limit public access’; this isn’t true.  Unless you upgrade your account, this is difficult to find, but Demont Daniel cited “http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?editwp=” as a feasible path to editing your Linkedin.com profile, and it worked.  This site takes you there directly.

No matter how small or large you perceive your online identity to be, it’s worth doing a quick search on your name or company.  You never know what you’ll find.

Successiory on social media
You can follow Successiory on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest and Houzz.