6 Settings to Help Keep Facebook Secure

Boasting 1.9 billion active users as of last September, Facebook is a key element to most marketing platforms. Most businesses will open both a personal account and a linked business account.  When creating an account or reviewing an existing account be sure the security settings are set appropriately. Define a clear distinction between and personal and business account and handle accordingly.

Regardless of the account purpose, be sure these settings have been reviewed.

1. What not to share. The site will ask for a lot of information, but that does not mean it is required. The basic information is necessary for setting up an account: your name, email address, birthday and gender. All other questions relating to favorite music, schools attended, or job description are completely voluntary. Information considered “public” by Facebook includes your name, profile picture, gender, username and “networks” (schools or employers). “Public” refers to anyone with a Facebook account. Remember that the Graph Search is designed to search all information posted within Facebook.
2. Importing a contact list. Facebook will prompt to import a contact list from your Web-mail service. This may be useful for a business account, but could be embarrassing for a personal account. Personal account setup may be better by starting with close friends and family.
3. Categorize friends and acquaintances. This is especially useful due to the popularity and necessity of social media for business marketing. A more casual relationship would be assigned as “acquaintance” on a personal page. Allowing the option for more personal updates to be seen by “Friends Excluding Acquaintances” when selecting your audience. This can be quite useful when managing both a business and personal page.
4. Visit the Privacy Settings page. The default settings are very public and loose.  Also visit “See more settings” link at the bottom of the menu.
5. Update Timeline and Tagging settings. Select to review posts you are tagged in before posting to you timeline. For a personal Facebook page, as opposed to business, when appropriate consider changing settings so only Friends can see your timeline.
6. Check Facebook Security Settings. Enable “Login Notifications” to receive a text or email when your account is accessed from a non-familiar computer. An extra precaution would be to enable “Login Approvals”, prompting Facebook to send a code via text or mobile app before a login is allowed.

Regardless of these settings, always be mindful of what you post and what others post about you. Your online personality is long-lasting and far-reaching.