Social media has made our personal information not only public, but also very accessible to pretty much anyone with online access. This is great if you want your pals to be able to find you wherever you are at 9pm on Friday night or see you at the beach in your hot new swimsuit, but it’s not ideal when you’re trying to keep a low personal profile amidst employers, co-workers, or personal foes. Here are eight things you should know about online profiles that can help you optimize your professionalism and personal safety online.
1. LinkedIn is the new job recruiter.
This online professional networking site is much more than a way to keep up with where prior coworkers are employed. It’s also the one-stop-shop for recruiters who are literally combing the site everyday for people—possibly including you—with specific qualifications. It is now common practice for recruiters and companies to research possible job candidates on LinkedIn, which means your profile here should be perfectly polished and treated as your actual resume—because it is!
2. Even an online alias doesn’t mean you’re anonymous.
Think you’re keeping your information private by using a fake name or partial name? Think again! While an alias can help you remain anonymous online, personal information is often thinly veiled behind a clever pseudonym. A screen name, tag line, or other alias can actually reveal vital information, such as an address, birth date, maiden name, or age—all of which can be traced back to personal identity. It is especially important for kids to be careful of what kind of message their screen name sends because it can make them vulnerable to online predators. When creating a screen name, the general rule is to avoid using your age, birth date, or any information tied to your physical address or bank account.
3. Status updates can tip off the wrong people.
We take the time to ask neighbors to pick up our newspapers when we’re out of town; we install home security systems, and organize neighborhood watch systems. And yet we freely let the world know our exact location on Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook. With a status along the lines of “Headed to a long vacation!” you might just be letting intruders know when best to rob your house of everything from your freshest spring décor to your chic patio furniture.
4. Government agencies can access even your “private” online information.
Even if you set your settings to maximum privacy, government agencies can still access your private pictures, information, statuses, and online friends’ information under the Patriot Act, so if you want to remain “under the radar,” keep your truly personal information offline.
5. Job recruiters browse Twitter and Facebook.
While LinkedIn may be where the pros browse your professional stats, the more socially driven social media sites are where prospective employers go to see what you’re really like. Negative comments, foul language, and party antics, when displayed online, can do more to hurt you than controversial comments from a past employer. So, make sure your Twitter feed, Facebook profile, personal blogs, and Google search results are consistent with the type of reputation you hope to keep.
6. Everyone can be/is a private investigator.
People no longer have to hire a professional Sherlock Holmes to find out your address, criminal record, salary, the price you paid for your home, where you work, your interests, or daily routines. There are search sites, such as Spokeo.com, that collate all the information ever posted on the internet with your name attached, making anyone with a computer a PI. Again, if you don’t want the world to know something about you, don’t put it into online words or images.
7. Privacy settings are constantly in flux.
Even if you have your Facebook settings set to private, what “private” actually means can change without notice. Keep abreast of the latest settings to make sure you’re in control of what information is available to others.
8. Your profile is not a safe place to vent.
Though we may call it cyberspace, the internet is not nearly as vague or anonymous as the “space” terminology we attach to it. With the rise of social media networks, the internet actually increases accountability and decreases anonymity—especially in the job search realm in which you could be questioned about every picture or status update. So next time you think about sending a negative thought or action into the “cosmic void,” ask yourself if you would say it to someone’s face. If the answer is “no,” then it doesn’t belong in the blogosphere either.
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/8-things-you-should-know-about-your-online-profiles-1299552/
Kevin L. Brown
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