Ten Social Media Travel Exposures
For many of us, a huge part of the holidays is catching up with family and friends. Even if you’re travelling somewhere away from family and friends, the constant stream of updates from them on social media is bound to have you wanting to share photos of what you’re up to also.
Before you share that photo of your pool-side cocktail, here are some things to be careful of:
- On the 6th day of Threatmas we went through the dangers of sharing travel plans with strangers. This advice is just as important for any of your social media profiles.
- It’s not hard to figure out that if you’re sharing photos from Bali, chances are you won’t be back for a few hours. Could this knowledge put your business at risk?
- Sharing photos of boarding passes can be fun, but there’s a heck of a lot of information on those things you really don’t want strangers to have. It’s best to avoid these photos.
- Considering the distance between Australia and the rest of the world, pretty much every overseas holiday is quite a haul. Sharing your flight details, especially if it’s any further than New Zealand, from the airport is a quick way to signal you'll be away for a while.
- “Really looking forward to 2 weeks catching up with family up north. :)” Just as photos in Bali can indicate your home office is vacant, so can status updates like these.
- Taking your team away for an end-of-year offsite or a start-of-year kickoff? It could be a good idea to wait until you get back before you talk about it online.
- Connecting to public WiFi can in some situations be very insecure and should be avoided where possible. You may not realise it, but as soon as you connect to WiFi, your business accounts will start logging in and downloading potentially sensitive data if you’ve not disconnected them fully.
- Publicly sharing that you’re near a significant event while travelling can also give scammers information they could use against you.
- Be careful which accounts you’re sharing with as well; if your business profiles are connected to your personal devices take extra care not to share those travel shots with your customers. Unless, of course, travel is your business :)
- You might also meet some interesting characters on the road. If they send you a friend request, consider their motives before you click approve.
Often the best thing to do while travelling is to simply enjoy the trip and share your experiences when you return.
If you do want or need to share with your family, friends and colleagues take extra care not to share more than you need to and try to limit anything you do to only those you need to.