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Wednesday Nov 14, 2007

Your online identity

Facebook, MySpace, Bebo - you name a social network, there's bound to be someone on TheSite.org using it. As well as being really good fun, these websites can bring up all kinds of problems. Here are my five hot tips for making the most of them .

1. Use profile restrictions
Whether it be to protect yourself from identity fraud or to stop nosey work mates looking at photos of your weekend antics, there are ways to keep certain information private. On a basic level, it's probably best to keep your profile accessible to friends and contacts only - you really never know who might be searching for you. Beyond that, you can usually restrict settings so that even people who you add as a 'friend' can only see specific areas. Most importantly, avoid having all your basic information available (especially if you add people you don't know very well) which includes your date of birth, email address and home address. Oh and don't feel obliged to add people you don't actually like .

2.  Lose the email notifications
The novelty of receving emails everytime anyone leaves you a message, sends you a virtual gift or 'pokes' you soon wears thin. Remeber that you can cancel email notifications on social networking sites which is bound to help prevent distraction from other (possibly more important) things.

3. Be aware of your status 
Facebook, MySpace and Twitter offer you the opportunity to update your friends, family aquaintances, the girl/guy you met once and want to impress (you know it's true) with your daily activity. So my tip to you is where possible, make it specific. Avoid the generic options like Joe is at work, Joe is at home, Joe is on the bus, Joe is at college, Joe is OK. Unless it's relevant and you want people to know they can reach you at home, then who cares? On the other hand, if you say Joe is in London for the evening, then who knows who might get in touch and say "Hey, you're in London? Come and meet me, I've got a spare ticket for a great gig tonight." Trust me, it does happen.

P.S Don't use status updates to insult people by name, or air dirty laundry - it's not pretty.

4. Be mindful of the comments or wall posts you leave for people
Friends of mine have disabled their walls to prevent people making comments about areas of their life they don't want made public. I have to say, this isn't such a bad idea. However, the main thing to remember is that it's best to use private messaging for anything serious or important and save the wall or comments section for fun stuff like  'Happy Birthday' greetings or "what are you up to these days?" You know the score.

5. Remember real contact
It's easy to let social networking become the main way for getting in contact with friends instead of an enhancement to your relationships. It's good to try and be aware of which friends of yours would much prefer a text or call from you than a message online. You might even be that person. It's common for people to  misunderstand things they read on people's profiles, or only have half the story and imagine the rest, so if you don't have contact with them in real life, or if you've no intention of giving them a call or meeting up with them to get clarification, then remember to take things with a pinch of salt.

So that's the end of my top five, I hope you find them useful. What are your top tips?

 

Posted by Helen ( 12:48 PM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[0]