It's not Facebook's fault you got robbed...(The Pros and Cons of Geo-tagging)

 There've been a few stories in the media this week about a rash of burglaries. Apparently, the burglar was able to learn what houses would be empty because of Facebook statuses and geo-tagging.

 For those who don't know, geo-tagging is a way to include actual geographic metadata location information to your websites or photos. Say you own a restaurant and on your website is a photo of the restaurant. I get a glimpse of your fantastic looking food and must drop everything and eat their immediately (melodramatic I know, sorry its lunch time). Geotagging allows me to find out where you are and get to you easier. We both win. Its also a great for those times when you are like "I'm really in the mood for some coffee, where's a coffee shop around here?" By plugging in your address into a maps site or phone or your car's GPS its gonna pull up the closest coffee shops. It will often times even show you how to get there.

 There are definite business benefits to geo-tagging. Used carefully and creatively they can be a fantastic addition to business digital media network. Contact us at Online Media Interactive (shameless plug) and we can show you how to make them work for your particular business. 

 Personally speaking though, the technology scares me a little. It's available in many of the new cell phones and Twitter and 4square are among the social media networks that utilize the technology. I'm not sure I want everyone knowing where I am all the time. For safety's sake, you have to be careful not to give too much of your personal comings and goings away.

 Here are a few tips for safely using social media:

1. Be careful friending people you don't know. If someone you don't know and have no mutual friends in common with sends you a friend request exercise caution when accepting it.

    2.   Don't  announce you are going away on vacation in status updates and tweets. If you absolutely must brag    about the killer two week vacation you're taking, use your privacy settings to ensure that only the people you trust and know will see it.

    3.  Wait until after you are back home to post those great vacation photos. Taking photos and instantly uploading them to Facebook or Twitter can alert potential thieves that you away.

    4.  Twitter gives you the option to include your location in the tweets you send out. Depending on the Twitter application you use this may be a default setting or something that you have to disable. For safety's sake consider disabling this location setting.

   5.   If you are making plans with people for the evening over Twitter or Facebook use the inbox and direct messaging features. Don't make these plans on your profile walls. Direct messages and inboxes are private. Walls can be seen. The great thing about doing this on Facebook is that as long as everyone you are messaging is on Facebook too you can write one message that includes them all.

Do you all have any additional suggestions on how to use social media safely? Or have you had any horror stories about someone who was victimized? Let us know.