Keeping Your Social Media Accounts Secure

It’s hard to remember a time when social media wasn’t a regular part of our lives. These days, if your business isn’t using multiple platforms to communicate with your existing and potential customers, then you’re not doing a very good job at staying relevant. Social media allows you to engage with others on a scale that simply wasn’t possible before.

Unfortunately, social media is a popular target for nefarious hackers that like to throw a little chaos into the mix whenever possible. Although your business might be small, if a hacker thinks that screwing around with you will give them and their friends a chuckle or two, they’ll do it. This has been proven time and again

So, how can you protect yourself? Nothing is 100% foolproof, but by following these safeguards, you’ll increase the likelihood that the hackers will leave you alone:

Although setting up a hard-to-guess password can be a pain in the butt sometimes since it’s likely that you have multiple online accounts to keep track of — each with their own rules — it’s worth the hassle. Those guidelines are there for a reason. Why? Well, believe it or not, but millions of people have used passwords like, ahem… “12345”… “123456”… “1234567”… you get the point. And there’s the ever-popular “password.” These kinds of things leave you vulnerable to hackers, who will often to able to guess a password by looking through a published list of the most common ones. The solution is to come up with a complicated password that cannot be guessed, and if you’re worried about keeping track of several at once, employ a password application that does it for you. You can even check the security level of your password by clicking here.

This isn’t usually a huge deal when it comes to most social media platforms, because their default settings typically take high security into account. You should be safe here, but it’s best if you check the privacy settings just to be sure. You can easily make changes that you feel are appropriate, ones that will increase the security of your account.

Have you noticed that many credit card transaction machines now have a plastic “shield” over the numerical pad? That’s because thieves have been known to get a person’s PIN to their debit or credit cards just by watching a person type the numbers in. Of course, this is a much different situation than securing your social media accounts, but the point is that you must always be aware of the possibility of theft. We often have our social media accounts open on our phones, laptops, etc., and if your device gets stolen, that person will have access to your social media accounts. To prevent this, we suggest locking the device with a password so that if it gets stolen, the thief won’t be able to able to cause more trouble for you. This will give you ample time to change your passwords.

If you really want to go gung-ho in protecting your social media accounts, you may want to consider hiring a consultant to ensure that you’re taking the correct measures. Even though this may seem like a frivolous expenditure, it is a small price to pay since hacking of your account can cause financial losses and maybe even a damaged reputation. Better to be safe than sorry.