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Our obsession with social media is at an all-time high. It is uncommon now to get through the day without checking one form of social media, and this is evident as the average person spends around 2 hours a day on the social platforms.
How we protect ourselves on these sites can’t be ignored just because it is seen as a sociable space that eats up our free time through endless scrolling. Where there is personal information online, there are hackers close by looking to make a profit from it.
Individual social media platforms have been easy targets since they first came about in the early 2000s. To set up a profile, we hand over what seems like harmless information like date of birth and email address but with this sudden surge of people uploading their personal details, there was a sudden flood of data that hackers could target.
Once hackers have this information, they can go on to control an individual’s account and potentially use it to access bank accounts, set up credit cards, and carry out any other types of fraud wherever a profit is up for grabs.

How You Manage Privacy Settings

The privacy settings on social media platforms allow users to control who sees the information they put out there, and as a result – controls how secure your information is. If you use social media, you should be aware of your level of privacy, and review them regularly as settings change. Although there are lots of social media sites out there, all with slightly different privacy settings, the top three are as follows:
Facebook
Not only should you consider who can see what you post online (it gives you the option of private, friends, friends of friends, and public), but also what organisations can access when it comes to marketing.
Things like your birthday, hometown, and interests may be accessed by businesses to tailor their advertising to you. Facebook allows its users to decide who gets personal data from you.
Twitter
Twitter allows users to control who sees their tweets, who can tag them in photos, and what accounts can follow them. Doing this can not only manage current connections, and who sees what, but also deal with future accounts that could pop up. External message requests can also be denied, preventing strangers from contacting you directing, cutting off another way that hackers can get in touch.
Instagram
Instagram users can tailor their profiles in the information and pictures they share. The photo-focus of Instagram means that privacy settings are much more black and white. Users can either make their profile private or public, determining if people need permission to follow you, a kind of bouncer to your personal photos. The worry is that the obsession with the number of likes you get on a picture can lead people to leave their profiles wide open and exposed for anyone to see.

Social Media Threats

Hackers don’t even need to look very far when it comes to gaining information on users through social media. They start by gathering their victims’ personal information from what’s available on the sites. Many identity thieves can get into their victim’s email by following the “forgot password,” option and then trying to recover the password via email. Once they are into your email account, they have opened a whole new wealth of valuable data.
Hacking across social media has become so common that it has acquired its own name – social engineering. Rather than requiring a high level of technical skill, it is more often about using the information available on a personal profile to win the trust of a complete stranger through psychological games in order to exploit them for personal gain.
Social media allows people to connect easily, a factor that can allow strangers to get close to you. An example of this technique came in July 2017 when a fake account circulated in spreading harmful software to employees through their social media accounts. A so-called London-based photographer named Mia Ash started gaining connections with corporate employees. “Mia” has accounts across several popular platforms, allowing her audience to grow rapidly. From this new wealth of people, she set off a virus disguised as a harmless application. If the unsuspecting employee clicked on the application, harmful files were released and the attacker gained full access to the victim’s system.
The case of Mia Ash demonstrates the increasing creativity of hackers. Social media environments cause people to let their guards down, and as a result, the cybercriminals close in.

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Social media is the term given to the collection of online communication channels focused on creating an online social space for people to use. Whether you want to get involved with online political discussions, share holiday snaps, or film yourself pranking friends, social media has something for everyone.

The variety of social media platforms out there means that it has become hugely popular in today’s culture. What started with online forums and blogs, has grown into continuous video and photo sharing. With the average person now spending 2 hours a day on social media – it is clearly a trend that is only going to continue growing.

Types of social media

There are a number of social media sites and apps out there targeting users in various demographics. Here’s a whistle-stop tour of the top five most popular social media apps in use right now:

Facebook

A free social networking website and app that allows registered users to create profiles where they post about what they’ve been up to with photos and videos, as well as written posts. You can also send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. As far as social media goes, Facebook is one of the most varied platforms because of the variety of ways you can share information and communicate with others.

Twitter

Less focused on personal profiles, and instead serves as a microblogging service where members can broadcast short posts called tweets. Rather than having friends on Twitter (like Facebook), you follow other people to see what they post, and vice versa. Lots of people use Twitter to see what their favourite celebrities’ tweet about rather than close family and friends.

Instagram

A photo and video sharing app owned by Facebook that has grown in popularity over the past few years due to the obsession people have with mobile photography. Nowadays, smartphones have impressive cameras built in, making it easier for people to instantly share moments online. As well as following family and friends, Instagram is the place to be when keeping up with the exciting lives of the A-listers, similarly to Twitter.

YouTube

The home of video sharing, and the platform responsible for creating social media phenomena like Zoella and PewDiePie, with millions of subscribers between them. People can upload and watch videos on the site, and the professionalism of these videos can range massively, from amateur home videos to high-quality edits and production. The topics covered can range from beauty regimes to pranks and challenges, and with 300 hours’ worth of video being uploaded every minute, whatever you’re interested in – YouTube will have videos on it.

Snapchat

An app on smartphones that means people can send images and videos with a short lifespan. This just means you can send a photo to a friend, and after a few seconds it’s gone forever. As the other sites exist in website format with much more permanent posts, Snapchat is an instant form of social media for people to use.

What is Social Media used for?

The platforms out there vary in terms of what kind of content you can share. This content can range from written posts on Facebook and Twitter, photos on Instagram and Snapchat, to videos on YouTube.

The personal aspect of the platforms varies too. Some sites are used for connecting with people you actually know (like friends and family), but some platforms are used by celebrities, and as a result, scrolling through social media can have the same sort of effect as flicking through a magazine to find out all the latest celeb gossip – another example of how the way we get our information is changing due to technology.

People use social media for both work and pleasure. Just like you can use social media to keep in touch with your loved ones, businesses can use it to build a strong relationship with their customers, as well as a healthy workforce through creating an employee/employer online community.

As traditional forms of marketing and promotion have become less effective, businesses can use social media in order to increase their exposure to potential customers. For example, brands using influential people such as reality stars and celebrities to endorse their products with sponsored social media posts. People can be highly influenced by what their favourite celebrities use, so brands use this for promotion.

As well as businesses using the traditional forms of social media to increase their exposure and maintain good customer relations, there are social media platforms out there for businesses to use. LinkedIn is the most established example of this. Set up in 2003, the site is used for professional networking where employers can post job roles and job seekers can post their CVs – a social network for the working world.

Dangers of social media

Cybersecurity

Hackers don’t even need to look very far when it comes to gaining information on users through social media. They start by gathering their victims’ personal information from what’s available on the sites. Many identity thieves can get into their victim’s email by following the “forgot password,” option and then trying to recover the password via email. Once they are into your email account, they have opened a whole new wealth of valuable data.

Hacking across social media has become so common that it has acquired its own name – social engineering. Rather than requiring a high level of technical skill, it is more often about using the information available on a personal profile to win the trust of a complete stranger through psychological games in order to exploit them for personal gain.

Trolling

The protection of a screen means that some people use social media as a way of abusing others or exploiting them for financial gain. This is when the privacy settings come into their own so you can control who can see you, increasing your online security.

Trolling is basically online bullying. Public figures are often the victims of online trolling due to their high profiles leaving them in the firing line. In 2012, Tom Daley narrowly missed out on a medal during the London Olympics and faced a massive wave of abuse on Twitter as a result. Sadly this is just one of many cases of celebrities being the targets of vicious trolling.

Mental health

Our obsession with scrolling has become a serious problem. The average Brit checks their phone as much as 28 times a day, leading to a habit that can become damaging on our mental health because of the constant comparisons we make between ourselves and other people. While social media platforms can have their benefits, using them too much can make you feel increasingly unhappy and isolated in the long run.

The constant barrage of perfectly filtered photos that appear on Instagram is bound to knock many people’s self-esteem, while obsessively checking your Twitter feed just before bed could be contributing towards poor quality of sleep. Becoming more conscious of the amount of time you spend scrolling through other people’s online profiles could help you focus back on yourself, boosting your self-confidence as a result.

Despite these dangers and problems with social media, the positive impact it has cannot be ignored. And if used correctly, you can maintain friendships, share your feelings and memories, and create an online life to look back on in the future.

How to stay safe on social media

Here are 10 ways to keep yourself safe whilst using social media networks:

  1. Use a strong password. The longer and more random it is, the more secure it will be.
  2. Use a different password for each of your social media accounts.
  3. Set up your security answers. This option is available for most social media sites.
  4. If you have social media apps on your phone, be sure to password protect your device and always update the apps when prompted, up-to-date apps are the safest.
  5. Be selective with friend requests. If you don’t know the person, don’t accept their request. It could be a fake account containing harmful data.
  6. Click links with caution. Social media accounts are regularly hacked. Look out for language or content that does not sound like something your friend would post, harmful files can be sent via links, and sometimes all you need to do is open the link for the virus to be released onto your device.
  7. Be careful about what you share. The more you post the easier it is to have your identity stolen.
  8. Become familiar with the privacy policies of the social media channels you use and customise your privacy settings to control who sees what. If your information falls into the wrong hands you could become a victim of identity fraud.
  9. Protect your computer by installing antivirus software to safeguard. Also ensure that your browser, operating system, and software are kept up to date, just like your apps.
  10. Remember to log off when you’re done.

Social media for businesses

The popularity of social media isn’t restricted to our social lives anymore, businesses are jumping on the craze too. Social media is used in business in a number of ways:

Customer relations

Just like you can use social media to keep in touch with your loved ones, businesses can use it to build strong links with their customers, both locally and globally, as well as creating a healthy workforce through employee/employer relations.

Marketing

As traditional forms of marketing and promotion have become less effective, businesses can use social media in order to increase their exposure to potential customers, and therefore increase their audience. For example, brands using influential people such as reality stars and celebrities to endorse their products with sponsored social media posts. People can be highly influenced by what their favourite celebrities use, so brands use this technique for promotion.

Business-focused platforms

As well as businesses using the traditional forms of social media to increase their exposure and maintain good customer relations, there are social media platforms out there specifically for businesses. LinkedIn is the most established example of this. Set up in 2003, the site is used for professional networking where employers can post job roles and job seekers can share their CVs – a social network for the professional side of life.

Reviews

Social media can influence consumer’s purchase decisions through reviews, marketing tactics and advertising. It allows the customer to have the power to share their experience of a company – something that has the potential to advertise the organisation in the best possible way, through the voices of the customers.

Networking

As well as businesses using the traditional forms of social media to increase their exposure and maintain good customer relations, there are social media platforms out there specifically for business use. LinkedIn is the most established example of this. Set up in 2003, the site is used for professional networking where employers can post job roles and job seekers can post their CVs – a social network for the professional side of life!

Social media has changed the ways we are connecting, communicating, and collaborating, and this is influential over our social and professional lives. The skill is knowing which platforms are best for you, depending on what you want to use it for, and what you want to get out of it.

The importance of staying safe on social media is greater than ever, and is much more than just a case of turning on your privacy settings. The dangers can come in a number of forms and could lead to financial harm just as much as mental health problems – both risks that are equally serious for individuals and businesses alike.

Check out our Social Media Awareness training course to learn more about how to protect your organisation’s reputation online.

Organisations have social media policies in place in order to make sure their employees understand the dos and don’ts of using social media. If there is a social media policy in place, you should ensure that you’ve read it.

Ever since the internet and email were introduced as business tools, policies for safe online use have grown in importance. However, the policies that companies develop for internet and email use aren’t the perfect fit for social media – it is a whole other kettle of fish.

By ‘policy’ I mean that the company has a code of conduct or a shared list of rules and information in a place that provides guidance to use social media safely. Creating a social media policy allows companies to set expectations for appropriate behaviour online to prevent any legal problems or public embarrassment that can come as a result of employees using social media badly. A good policy, that is implemented successfully, helps safeguard your brand’s reputation and encourages employees to responsibly share the company’s message.

People use social media for both work and pleasure. Just like you can use social media to keep in touch with family and friends, businesses can use it to build a strong relationship with their customers, as well as a healthy workforce through creating an employee/employer online community. The fact social media is used so much in business means that having a stable policy in place reduces the chances of problems occurring that could not only impact the individual but the whole company.

Unfortunately, it’s very common for a company to have to apologize for an employee’s thoughtless tweet. And it could have been avoided if that employee had been given proper guidance from day one.

It is never too late to set up a social media policy, even if you’re already established online – a good policy can help you grow in a secure way.

What is the Point of a Policy?

1. Defends against legal trouble and security risks

Social media is confusing when it comes to copyright and privacy. Strong social media policies can help safeguard your organisation against potential legal troubles and security risks. They outline potential threats and include instructions on how to avoid them.

2. Empowers employees to share company messaging

With clear guidelines, employees can understand how to use social media to promote the company they work for – social media can be an employee advocacy tool if they have a policy to follow to make sure everything that employees share is accurate and on-brand.

3. Creates consistency across channels

If you have public-facing employees, you also need to make sure they are aware of any brand standards to maintain a consistent brand ‘voice’. For example, you may want your employees’ Twitter handles to include a reference to your brand, making it easier for customers to identify the company and engage with it. This area of a social media policy should also include proper use of images, video, and any other forms of media.

What Should a Good Policy Include?

Some social media policies are ten pages long with very specific rules and clauses, some keep it simple and tell their employees to use their judgement and be sensible. The point is that the policy is straightforward and easy to follow. Although social media policies vary widely by sector, some universal pointers that policies could include are:

Rules for what types of information can be shared. Almost all social media policies include restrictions on disclosing confidential or proprietary business secrets or anything that could influence stock prices.

Make sure employees use different passwords for their social media accounts and their enterprise accounts, it sounds simple but repetitive passwords can be an easy target for data breaches.

Define who is responsible for specific social media governance tasks. This can be set out clearly by making a table that lists the social media responsibilities such as brand guidelines, and then the person that is responsible for governing that area. Social media roles and responsibilities to assign might include:

  • Message approval
  • Crisis response
  • Customer service
  • Social engagement
  • Security and legal concerns
  • Staff training
  • Social media monitoring

There are lots of risks involved with social media when it comes to legal issues and security. A good policy should provide clear guidelines to make employees aware of these threats, how to avoid them, and what to do if problems occur.

Implementing a Policy

  • Get employees involved: By seeking input from the people the policy actually effects, you are covering all bases and ensuring that people are aware of a program that is relevant to them.
  • Keep it broad: Don’t get bogged down with making the policy specific to each individual social media platform, provide guidelines that are as universal as possible.
  • Stay positive: Encourage your employees to be active on social media because although there are risks, the rewards are high if used well. Instead of discouraging use, giving employees the tools they need to use social media safely and effectively.

We all know social media moves fast, policies that are too rigid can be ineffective in a changing situation. Think of your social media policy as a set of guardrails, rather than continuous train tracks. It should be considered a living document, constantly changing to remain relevant and effective.