How to Protect Your Social Media Accounts, the Easy Way

There’s a been a lot of talk in the news recently about online safety and third party apps.  How do you keep your accounts safe?  Use these tips and tricks to monitor and protect your social media accounts. 

How to Protect Your Social Media Accounts, the Easy Way

As we learned with the recent Facebook scandal, the more applications that you have communicating with each other, the less online privacy you have.  Connecting third party apps to your social media networks enables those companies to share information between each other.

Sometimes this is fine and exactly what you want. 

For example, I use several (3^rd party) Twitter apps to help me manage my business Twitter account.  These apps help automate my messaging, engagement, reach, etc.  which is great and exactly what I want.

However, other times I don’t want different companies sharing my personal information with each other. 

For example, I don’t necessarily want Facebook to know what I bought online for my personal use. But I if I use a Facebook login to enter that online store, then I’m giving both parties the ok to share information.

The Simple Solution

Simple solution to limit this:  Think twice before you use the Facebook Single-Sign on option.

What is single-sign-on?  The single-sign-on allows you to use the same login for multiple places.  Usually they’re contained to a single website but with the Facebook single-sign-on you can login to websites across the Internet with your Facebook login information.  These websites have partnered with Facebook and will thus be sharing some sort of information with them.    It’s not a bad thing. In fact, it can be quite convenient.  However, by doing so, just remember that you’re sharing some of your information with Facebook which you may or may not want to do.

So, if you have any reservations about it, just create your own login for each website.

Jeff Rossen did a really great report on all of this for the Today Show.  Click here to see the whole story.  He even walks you through the Facebook settings so you can see which 3^rd party apps are connected to Facebook.  You can keep or delete whichever ones you want.

Remember, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to connect your accounts, you just need to be aware of which apps you DO have connected so you can stay on top of your online safety.

Monitor your social media accounts a few times a year

It’s a good thing to monitor your social media accounts. Check in a few times a year.  Disconnect any third party apps you’re not using.

Just this week, Twitter took proactive measures to protect their users’ data when a security breech was noticed.  They encouraged everyone to change their password,They encouraged everyone to change their password, so I quickly jumped online to change mine.  After I did so, I was prompted with a message to review the 3^rd party apps that are connected to my account.

Turns out I had 50 apps connected!  What?!!

So I scrolled through, reviewed them, and disconnected the ones I no longer needed.

Many turned out to be duplicates.  And even more were apps that I don’t even remember signing up for!

Here’s a video I took to show you exactly how to do this:

Remember, third party apps are not a bad thing. You just have to monitor your connections and do some spring cleaning every now and then.

Now your turn…How do you feel about third party apps? Love em? Hate em?  Leave me a comment below.

admin

HI! I’m a Shana, self-proclaimed Media Mixologist, wife, and mom to two little girls. I love to mix up cocktails of crafts, recipes, wellness, family and business with just the right amount of sparkle to help you shine everyday. So, grab a glass, and let’s celebrate the cocktail of life!