Tips for Securing Facebook and Instagram

Whether you love it or hate it, social media is here to stay. Social media impacts every aspect of our lives – from business and personal pages to advertising strategies, it is the backbone of our digital marketing livelihood. 

So how do we keep our presence on social media secure? We’ve all witnessed the impact of someone’s account being hacked and the outcome can range from a minor headache to a full blown company emergency. The reality is that social media platforms can be properly secured, but are often neglected until a crisis occurs. When using these platforms for marketing purposes, it is imperative to take the necessary steps to secure your account. At Black Talon Security, we will take a step back and review the security settings in Facebook and Instagram to help protect you, your business reputation and marketing livelihood. 

Secure Your Facebook Account

Off the bat, it’s important to remember that your Facebook business page must be connected to a personal profile. That means if a hacker gains access to your personal page, they also will be able to access your business page. So it is crucial to practice safe and secure habits on both your personal page, as well as your business page. To get started securing your Facebook account:

Audit Your Account

Facebook offers an excellent toolset to audit your account security and preview the public’s perception of your page. To access these settings:

1. Open Facebook and navigate to the top right hand corner where you will see a triangle pointing downwards. 
2. Click on the triangle and navigate to Settings and Privacy > Privacy Checkup.

Here you can review your privacy settings along with tips on how to keep your account secure. Each navigational card in the Privacy Checkup page offers an overview of your privacy and security settings for your account. 

One particularly useful card is “Who Can See What You Share” which is an excellent way to audit your social presence and monitor the separation between your work and personal life. Businesses may lose customers due to poorly thought out posts by people who don’t realize that anyone can see your feed. Make your decisions around what you want the public to see by adjusting your privacy settings through this card. 

Add Extra Security

Two settings that are critical to your account security are multi-factor authentication and login alerts. Ensure that you have these two extra layers of protection active to make sure no unauthorized persons have access to your account. 

To access login alerts, head over to your “Settings” and select “Security and Login.” Here you can see exactly what devices are logged into your account and where they are geographically. So, if you are in Colorado, but you see a device logged in from an unfamiliar device or place, you have a problem. If you scroll towards the bottom of this page, you have the option to turn on two-factor authentication which can be used via SMS text messages or through an authenticator app. With two-factor authentication, you gain the added layer of security by entering a one-time code during login from a secondary device. Whenever there is the option for MFA (multi-factor authentication), you should absolutely turn it on.

Secure Your Instagram Account

While Instagram has fewer security options than Facebook, you can manage your security by navigating to the “Settings” and locating your “Privacy and Security” Settings. There you can turn on your two-factor authentication and decide between using a SMS text message or authenticator app for verification. We highly recommend using the MFA for Instagram and suggest using strong and unique passwords as a first-basis security measure. 

You may have linked your Instagram account to a 3rd party source in the past, either deliberately or unintentionally. If you navigate to the left hand side in settings and select the option for “Apps and Websites”, you can view any applications or 3rd party websites that have gained access to your account and choose to keep or remove them.  

Keep Your Social Accounts Secure

A major rule in social media hacks comes down to a trust factor issue; you may think that it’s your friend reaching out but it is actually a hacked account. Often, before taking a moment to think about the content we engage with, we click. 

The ramifications of compromised social media accounts are significant, whether it is reputational harm to your personal or business account. And it doesn’t end with posts: if a hacker gains access to your ad centers, your money is at risk too. By following our recommendations on Facebook and Instagram by implementing these security tools, you can ensure you and your business’ reputation.