It’s been a rocky year when it comes to staying safe on social media sites.
For example: When you’re posting images and content about your business on your Facebook page, how secure is that information — and do you even exclusively own it anymore?
It’s easy to set up and moderate a social media marketing campaign if you’re just looking to have a presence. But what about the things going on behind the scenes that take a little more awareness? If you’re part of Facebook, it may be vital for you to keep up with the ever-changing privacy settings and policies that either protect or promote your company’s published assets. Controlling how, when and where your information is distributed is a key aspect of savvy marketing.
Here’s the latest from the Facebook privacy settings forefront, as of December 2012:
The Pros
The good news is that the latest wave of changes does attempt to make things easier for the interactives specialist running your Facebook account. For example, privacy setting shortcuts make it easier to manage filters and block those you’d rather not see your content. With a reduced amount of clicks, you can quickly manage filters guiding what kinds of elements (photos, wall posts, etc.) that certain people can access. You can also block people who try to repeatedly message or solicit you. And it’s important to note that you can now manage what you choose to show on your own timeline, which can be affected by third parties tagging your company into content that you may not have originally approved.
The Cons
One thing that Facebook users can no longer do is eliminate themselves from searches. For the most part, this is only a detriment to private entities, like individuals, who don’t want to be found. For the most part, your business wants to expand its outreach and be highly visible — otherwise, why employ social media at all? If you have a Facebook page that’s in development but not ready to debut, you always can keep a page existing but inactive, blocking it from all users.
Neutral
There are a few tweaks that can be taken as positive or negative developments, depending on how you view them. First: Now when you agree to use an app on Facebook, you’ll be asked twice if you really want to sync your information to that application. For some, this means extra clicks and extra time to get where they’re trying to go; for others, it’s a preventive measure that will keep them from sharing their data with untrusted third-party sites. Similarly, boxes will now appear on your screen to explain what certain agreements mean before the user accepts it, to make sure they really understand what opening an app or changing a setting will mean. You may consider this an unwanted pop-up or a useful tool.
What do you think of this recent round of changes?