An Incredible Guide to Use Social Media for Business

 My children have always been digitally active, and as I look back over the years, one of the best choices I made was to show my children from the beginning the dangers of over-sharing. I remember when my daughter asked me for Instagram and after it passed the app test. (it was NOT a social site back then, but we may discuss that in a different article) Before I let her run wild with it, taking and posting photos to the web for all the world to see, I did a few things and made a short training lesson for her. Here is what I did and why.

The first thing I did was to have a conversation with her about WHY she wanted it. At the time it was just a repository for photos. You could make an account, choose who had access to your account and then upload photos to the account. People who were allowed access could browse your photos, maybe comment on them. It was a simpler time. Anyways, during this conversation, she relayed to me several well thought-out, valid reasons why a healthy happy teen girl might want to share photos, and so we proceeded to discuss what was appropriate to share. Instagram++ Now we all obviously know what comes to mind first when someone mentions a teen girl posting photos on the Internet, and frankly, I have never had an issue with her being provocative or scandalous, so even though our conversation hit that topic, it did not stop there or even focus there. What we discussed during our talk was the content of the data contained in and with the photo, i.e., the metadata. She was required to turn location information off on the photos she posted so that no one could track her or map her from the GPS data that is attached to most smartphone photos.

Before we continue with the lesson I had with my daughter, I want to take a moment and explain WHY it is important to turn location services off for the camera app or remove location data from photos before children post them. (I do NOT recommend turning all location services off on your child's device as they are very handy for other things like locating your child, or finding a device they lost... but that will be covered in future articles... )