Social Networking Damage Control
Saturday night was great.So great that you don’t even remember it.
You log into your Facebook account, and suddenly, it all comes back to you. Every drink consumed, every obscene gesture made, every porcelain god desecrated – each has been painstakingly documented for all to see, complete with a link to your full profile.
You had just interviewed for that dream job Friday. You know that employers have finally gotten with the times and will likely be scouring your page to learn more about you and assess your character. Uh-oh... time to panic!
When not properly configured, your profile can be a huge liability. Luckily, there are measures that can be taken to keep you secure and mitigate fallout from PR disasters such as the one described above. Facebook and other social networking sites care about your privacy (and avoiding lawsuits), so they’ve implemented a number of features designed to keep you safe and lead prying eyes astray. Knowing what they are and how to properly utilize them can mean the difference between getting a promotion and getting the boot. It bears mentioning, however, that more tech-savvy HR departments have ways of circumventing whatever measures you’ve taken to cover your digital footprints – unfortunately, your safest bet is to erase the offending profile altogether. Having said that, the following precautions are a must if you’re not willing or able to jump off the face of the Web just yet.
1.) Set everything to “Private” or “Friends Only.” Always. This one’s a crapshoot, but it’s the simplest way to divert unwanted traffic from your page. All you need to do is tweak your account settings so that only friends or specific individuals can access your profile. Some sites allow you to choose exactly which components of your profile are friend-exclusive and which can be viewed by the public. Protection of this sort is laughably easy for someone with the know-how to bypass, but hey, you have to start somewhere.
2.) Delete all potentially incriminating or offensive material from your profile.If this sounds too much like selling your soul, don’t worry, it’s not. You’re simply concealing certain aspects of your inner being because they are embarrassing and shameful. Actually, “selling your soul” sounds better. Let’s stick with that. The bottom line is this – you shouldn’t have anything on your page that you wouldn’t mind your parents or kid sister seeing, regardless of how laid-back you perceive your employer and co-workers to be. If the wrong person stumbles across something questionable on your profile, it won’t be long before you find yourself in a difficult place. Better safe than sorry.
3.) Choose your friends wisely.If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. No matter how credible they seem, always look upon unsolicited friend requests with suspicion. The person on the other end could be a wily employer.
Or a spammer.
Or a stalker.
Or the Feds.
You get the picture. Also, consider removing any “friends” that you have no legitimate real-world connection to. People know other people, it’s a small world, and word gets around fast. This may sound overly paranoid, but remember that saying anything online is usually tantamount to barking it through a megaphone in a public square – you’ll want a small crowd should you say something inappropriate.
Networking sites can be excellent social and professional tools, and their benefits generally surpass their drawbacks. Just be mindful of the fact that they’re to be used in certain ways – and broadcasting the intimate details of your personal life to the world’s half-billion Internet users isn’t (usually) one of them. If you play it safe, this shouldn’t be a problem. If you don’t, I eagerly await next Saturday’s batch of pictures... They’ll be good for a laugh!
Labels: damage control, dream job, facebook, social networking
Posted by Seymour Jobs on 10/03/2008 11:18:00 AM
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2 Comments:
Great information! I have been trying to tell my nieces and nephews this, but they just laugh at me. I am going to send them a link to this post!
I definitly agree with #3 about being careful who you add! I know that every once in a while I will approve a friend request from someone who I have a couple mutual friends with and have casually met a couple times. Then, it turns out they are a club promoter or work for some kind of promotions company and they send a million invitations to events. They actually get paid to friend as many people as possible and spam them and it can get very annoying. So watch out for who is adding you because they might have ulterior motives and also be adding hundereds of other people. I usually don't add them if I know they work for a club, or I delete them asap.