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Social Media Safety Tips with Marketing Melodie on Fox 5 San Diego

April 19, 2016

Thank you so much to Fox 5 San Diego for inviting me to their studio to share Social Media tips. While I normally teach business owners, service providers and entrepreneurs how to use social media, I had the unique opportunity to share social media safety tips with viewers. Watch the full segment below and keep reading for more details on each tip, plus a fun behind the scenes video of my segment.

Marketing Melodie on Fox 5 San Diego

If you’d like more social media tips focused on business, please join my upcoming free webinar, 4 Secrets to Boost Sales on Facebook by signing up HERE. The webinar is on Friday April 29th at 12pm PST. Even if you can’t make it, you will get the free reply just for signing up.

Many people use social media as a tool to stay in touch with friends, family members and their kids. While social media is an amazing resource that keeps us connected, sometimes we overshare and inadvertently post information that makes us a target for crime. Understanding safety tips when it comes to social media will allow you to take advantage of technology while keeping you and your family safe. Here are 5 tips to stay safe online.

1. Do not post photos of your house number/address- Many people take photos in front of their house. This often happens when someone buys a new home or moves. These photos also often show the house number, which makes it very easy to figure out your address, especially when it’s also easy to find out what area of town you live in. When posting photos in front of your home, make sure the house number isn’t visible. Here’s a great photo with a couple in front of their new home without showcasing their address.

Marketing Melodie House Without Numbers

2. Do not post photos of street signs in your neighborhood- This is another way to make yourself an easy target by allowing it to be very easy to figure out where you live. I often see people walking their dogs around their neighborhood and posting a photo of their dog outside their home with a visible street sign. When posting photos of your pets outside your home, make sure street signs aren’t visible. Both of these pet photos show the animal outside with no visible street signs or identifying information.

Marketing Melodie with Louie

Marketing Melodie with Ringo

3. Do not post photos of your event and concert tickets that show a bar code- We all get excited to attend a great concert or special event. Often times that excitement leads to us snapping a photo of tickets, and posting the tickets on social media. Be careful to cover up the bar code in you photo. Someone can easily make you a victim of ticket fraud by copying your ticket, making a fake new one and either selling it, or using it before you get a chance to. If you do plan to post photos of your tickets, make sure the bar code is cropped out like the example below.

Marketing Melodie Ticket with no barcode

4. Do not post photos of your airline boarding pass- Your boarding pass is linked to very personal information including your social security number, date of birth, address, and even credit card information. Many people post photos of their boarding pass at the airport because they are excited to go on vacation. It’s awesome to have exciting plans to look forward to, but instead of posting a photo of your boarding pass, post photos of the airplane or another type of scenic photo.

Marketing Melodie Airplane shot

5. Do not post nude photos of your kids- Everyone loves their kids and kids are also very cute, so naturally we want to post photos of them. I see many parents posting nude photos of their kids. Not only is posting nude photos against almost every social media site’s policy, it also can put your kid at risk for attracting predators. Instead of posting nude photos of your kids, post photos of them in cute clothes. Kids look cute in virtually anything, so you should have no problems here.

Marketing Melodie cute baby

Let’s keep social media a safe and fun place that allows us to connect with friends and family. Avoid these 5 types of posts and use the examples I give instead. If you would like more social media tips, as a reminder,  I’m offering a free social media webinar about Facebook. Everyone is welcome to sign up for my free live webinar, HERE. Everyone who signs up also gets the free reply. Thanks for watching my segment and reading about my social media safety tips. If you have any more social media safety tips, please share them with me in the comments! You can also join me on Facebook where I post a new social media video every week.

UPDATE: I was able to get behind the scenes footage of my news segment. Here is a video of the live segment as it was being aired!

 

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