Marian Merritt – the Internet Safety Advocate for Symantec – has graciously put together a list of tips for Must Love Geek and its readers. Just about everyone I know is on at least one, if not more, social networking site. After getting hacked about a bagillion times, I figured there was no better time than to share this guest post with you all.

The 411 on Using Social Networking Wisely

Let’s talk for a moment about the biggest threat to you when using social networking, and it’s not stranger danger. It’s reputational risk. Few of us, when young, give a hummingbird’s wing beat’s worth of notice to our reputations – you are only young once. I hate to tell you this, but lots of folks are using your online life to get a glimpse into your character. Future hiring managers, possible romantic partners, or potential roommates – we are all reviewing your social network pages (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc) to decide what kind of person you are. Here are some tips to give you more control over your online reputation which means you can get back to worrying about what to wear to your interview to make a great first impression!

Using the privacy settings – nothing is configured safely or privately by default. You might think that if you limit your privacy then old high school friends can’t find you. That’s not true, you can still turn up in Search but you will have restricted your friends and family’s information, as well as your profile, from view.
· Facebook and MySpace – click “privacy” in the top right hand area for more information. You will need to login for changes to take effect.

Giving it all away – I know you think it’s convenient to put all your information in your profile, including cell phone number, actual birthdate, home address and so forth. But this makes all that information available to your wider network and depending on how you’ve set things up, that may include your friend’s friends. Since your friends might not be web-savvy and accept strangers as friends, who knows who can view your info? If your actual friends need to reach you, they either already have your information or can send you a message on the social network itself. Limit your profile information to what you would be comfortable with a stranger knowing about you.

Loading Up on Applications – not all applications such as games and quizzes are made equally. Sometimes they include malicious or dangerous code like viruses, even without the knowledge of the game creator. You might wonder how that can happen but there is a busy marketplace to help people create new social networking applications and people often download these from the web, without any actual coding knowledge of their own. Or you might not realize that all those applications in Facebook now have access to your profile’s information and can use it for marketing purposes? Be very judicious in accepting an invite to become a troll or whatever is the latest craze in your social network. If you think you’ve got too many, you can change your settings to block the application.

Just Because You Are Famous, Doesn’t Mean You Are Safe – even celebrities have had their social networking pages hacked. The most famous example was for R&B artist, Alicia Keys. Her MySpace page was hacked in the days just before her latest CD came out. Any visitor who clicked on her video clips was prompted to download a video player update. If you fell for that – uh oh – you were redirected to a Chinese hacker’s website where spyware was put on your computer. And more commonly, social networks are full of pretender pages that purport to be for the actual celebrity. I’ve yet to meet a celebrity who hasn’t had this happen to them. Even Rachel Hunter, the supermodel, had a faker pretending to be her teenage daughter on MySpace. Unless it’s a fan website, or you actually are friends with a celebrity, don’t add these punks as your friends.

Passing the Grandma Test – I can’t believe how many 14 and 15 –year old girls pose for their profile photo in their underwear. And if I can see their profile, that means their Grandma could too. (Assuming she is online and decides to check her beloved granddaughter’s profile out.) I think the world can get along without the photos of you doing Jello shots in Cabo or posing with the beer bong in the frat house. And you should already realize that it’s not just you on these social networks. It’s become common for interviewers to check a candidate’s profile out, to do online searches on candidates and use what is found to make decisions. That may not seem fair but this is what is happening. Make sure what appears online about you (and this includes in your friends’ pages as well) sets the right impression and improves, not damages, your reputation.
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I want to thank Marian for sharing her tips with us. It’s important to remain safe online. Anyone can get hacked and I assure you it’s a long, grueling process to clean up that mess. Not only do we as bloggers risk being hacked, but our lives are out there for everyone to see. Our employers can easily find us (I know because I search for new hires as my job.) Your profile picture says a lot about you. Keep Marian’s Grandma Test in mind while posting photos to the Internet.

I Google myself every month to see what pops up – not only my name, but different variations (Jen, Jenn, Jenny) as well as my usernames on my blogs and other social sites. It’s a great way to keep tabs on what’s popping up on you as well as catching someone pretending to be you. I’ve found some of my own blog content being used by someone else this way.

Giveaway!

The great people Symantec loaded me up at BlogHer this past July and I wanted to share some more of my goodies with everyone here.

I still have a bunch of items to giveaway including two Symantec software for both PC and Mac. I also have a lock for your laptop, some HP skins, “That’s what she said” post-it notes, T-Mobile Hot Spot prepaid card and more! Here’s how you can win!

1. Spread the word about Internet & social networking safety with your readers. Link to this post on your blog, Facebook, twitter, etc.
2. Comment back here with the link to your post, tweet, etc.

There will be a couple of winners so make sure to let your readers know about this giveaway!