How To Avoid Facebook Twitter Disasters

Had a rather wild party last night, did you? Bet you can’t wait to share the good times with your friends on the Facebook, or tweet about it on Twitter till the cows go home! Trouble is, with social networks growing beyond your immediate circle of friends, an indiscrete inebriated tweet or Facebook wall post can have serious personal consequences, and with more and more social interaction on these networks leading to genuine business, the professional consequences aren’t easy to overlook either.
 
Now we are not suggesting you delete your accounts and sit under a rock — using these two wildly popular social networking sites takes one part discretion, and one part being forearmed. Slight tweaks of your Facebook and Twitter settings and you have full control over who sees what in your social network.
 
Facebook
Think those pictures of you on the beach or those endless quizzes which declare you are really Luke Skywalker’s twin will go down well with the next potential job interviewer? Here are our tips to avoid the most common

Facebook blunders:
Use the Lists: Friended too many people, including your boss? It may be time to discover one of Facebook’s newer features — lists. Lists allow you to organise people into groups and then assign each group different levels of access to your information on Facebook, based on your reading of their loyalties or sensibilities. To work with Lists, just click the Friends button (top bar) and +Create in the left column under Lists — or just put people on any list by using the ‘Add to list' drop-down menu next to their name. Then you can customise each list to allow different levels of access to your wall posts, personal information, photos and so on.
 
Not serious enough?: Does your profile page look like a disaster waiting to happen to any prospective employer looking you up, what with all those movie and personality quizzes strewn all over? Click the Applications button in the bottom left of the screen, and then click Edit Applications at the bottom of that list. On the page that appears, browse to find the application you would like to remove, Click Edit Settings, and then click remove next to ‘Info Section'. You may also want to disable the Facebook Beacon to turn off the ability for third-party Web sites to post to your profile. And voila — no more car racing high scores published to your profile!


You’re on Candid Camera!: That picture of you not doing justice to your winning looks? If it has been posted by someone who isn’t willing to remove it, you can remove a tag of yourself from any picture, which will remove it from Facebook's ‘View Photos of Me' pages. Once the tag is removed, you won't be able to be retagged on that particular photo.
 
All out of Love: Broken up recently, and changed your status to single to spite that someone? Don’t let the world know — either edit your News Feed and Wall settings under Privacy Settings, or if its too late, just head over to your wall and delete the offending item.