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Communicate About Privacy

Make sure you know your friends' and family's preferences about online privacy. Before you refer to other people in your posts, post photos of them, or tag them in posts or photos, ask yourself how they would feel about the post. If you don’t know someone’s preferences, try to avoid mentioning them on social media. Use this handy decision guide as a reminder:

Everyone has the right to participate in social media. If you are a survivor of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and/or stalking, it is important to learn ways to stay connected while protecting your privacy and security.

Think About Consequences

Before you post information or images on social media, ask yourself:

  1. If this post became public, what would my extended family think? My employer or a potential employer? A neighbor?

Before you post something on social media, ask yourself: Could my circumstances change such that this could be embarrassing in five years?

Adjust Your Privacy Settings

Review your privacy settings on your social media and other accounts and on your apps and communication devices, to make sure you're sharing what you want to share. Use these guides to help you identify and change the settings most important to you:

Privacy Tips for Businesses

When you’re running a small business, it’s helpful to actively manage your reputation.

  1. Your profiles on social media and review sites are likely to be in the top search results for your business name. If you manage and update those profiles, your customers and business contacts are more likely to see the information that you want them to see.
    • Comprehensive Steps for Reputation Management: The Online Reputation Management Guide (Disclaimer: This advice comes from a marketing firm, so it contains a few plugs for their services, but it is generally sound.)
  2. Make sure only trusted employees can post on social media sites using the official business account; one inappropriate or misinterpreted post could cause significant damage to your business’s reputation. One way to minimize misinterpreted posts is to require multiple employees to review posts before they are made public. Also, be sure to remove access when an employee leaves.

If customers, clients, or donors contact you, don't pass the communication along or post it publicly without asking them. This applies to both positive and negative feedback, as well as other types of information.

  1. If someone gives you a great review, ask them before you post their name or photo or anything else identifiable about them.
  2. If you're quoting something someone posted on a public site, or you're responding to a review, don't add other information you know about the individual without asking them.

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