How to Make Your Online Accounts Private

A great way to protect yourself and your online content is to limit social media and personal accounts to friends or business associates. By prioritizing privacy from the start, complications will be limited and the likelihood of attracting problem behavior will be reduced. Frequent complaints from those with open accounts are: Unwanted attention from stalkers, online ‘haters’, catfish, spammers, stolen or misused copyright content, and more.

The benefits of a private account may outweigh the drawbacks, but you don’t have to choose one or the other. If you’re a business owner or professional, considering keeping a separate personal account that is private and making a public account for your business or service. Generally speaking, the more exposure your business has, the better! New or expectant customers are less likely to want to initially commit to signing up to a page or as a follower and may simply want to browse an open format. If you’ve tried a public page and it still hasn’t worked for you, sites like Facebook let you choose the viewing audience for each post. That means you can limit some to ‘friends’ only, while others can be public or blocked from specific people. Exposure is good if it’s the right kind of exposure that benefits your brand or personal life.

Follow berify.com‘s quick and easy guide to securing your privacy:

How To Make Your Instagram Private: 

1. Open the Instagram app on your phone or tablet and log-in.
2. Select the house shaped icon for the home page.
3. Click the person symbol on the bottom right
4. Select the circular gear toolbar option at the top left of the screen.
5. Scroll down to “Private Account” option and see if the selection is blue. If it is ‘blue’ the privacy option is “on”. If it is not highlighted blue, then it is “off”

How To Make Your Facebook Page Private:

1. Open Facebook from my computer or mobile device and log-in.
2. Select the circular question mark icon in the upper right-hand side of your opening page.
3. Go to Privacy Settings. Select “You can view and adjust your privacy settings at any time.”
4. Select the options you want for who can see your friend’s list, future posts, send you friend requests, look you up by phone number or email address, etc.

If you are interested in adjusting the privacy setting of a specific post on Facebook, click the “down arrow” at the bottom of the post you’re writing. From there, you can make it available to a specific group of people or hide it from them, public, or viewable only by you. If the post has already been created, you will find this option in the upper left near the time and date.

How To Make Your Twitter Account Private:

Twitter makes it a little trickier to find their privacy settings. It is done through the “security and privacy” tab, but this can be difficult to find. Twitter is automatically public and their options make it easy to forget to change your settings.

1. Go to twitter.com and log-in.
2. Select your username, next to your photo.
3. On the next page you will see a lock or open symbol, which shows your posts. Select that symbol and you will be taken to the “About public and protected Tweets” page. 
4. Select the links you’re interested in: blocking, private or public account, and go from there.

How To Make ANY Account Private: If Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram aren’t your chosen platforms, the general rule it to look for a toolbar or settings option. Once in there, look for anything which says “privacy” or account. On sites like WordPress, you can select or change the privacy of each post by selecting the “eye” option.

Have a specific website with confusing privacy options? Ask us!