Things not to share on social media

The above picture has been circulating on Facebook regarding photo sharing and it is more than just funny. This photo shows how easy social media makes it to share information. Of course, just because you can easily share information, doesn’t make it worth sharing. This is also the subject of an article on Ragan’s PR Daily which makes some great suggestions about what should NOT be shared on Facebook or Twitter.
1. Your phone number.
2. Pictures of your credit card.
3. Your password
4. Pictures of you or anyone else naked or scantily clad

Numbers 1-4 are pretty obvious. If you don’t want to become a victim of identity theft, have creeps stalking you or end up fired, you don’t post your phone number, credit card, password, or you in your birthday suit on social media. Really, those are things no one needs to know about, so keep them to yourself.

5. That you are on vacation or the date of your vacation.
Yes, it was a dream of yours to visit the Mediterranean and you are so happy that you are finally there, but posting photos on your social media platforms lets others know you are away and puts you at risk for unsavory individuals to take advantage of that.

6. Pictures of what you did while on vacation.
No one other than close friends and family need to know how you spent you summer vacation. So, save the wild stories for them, not your social media followers.

7. Vague posts.
“Wondering about…”
About what? Tell me or don’t post anything. If you don’t have anything to say, don’t put a post on social media.

Social media offers us great platforms for sharing information. Unfortunately, it is too easy to put up posts that add little to the conversation and at worse, make you look ignorant. So, before you post something on social media ask yourself three questions:

Would I want my boss to see this post?
Would I want my spouse or parent to see this post?
Would I want this post to be featured in the evening news or on the front page of a newspaper?

If the answer is no to any one of these questions, then you shouldn’t be posting that picture of you running down the street with a lampshade on your head, a beer in one hand and a lit firecracker in the other. Save that story for a camp fire.