The internet is a great place for communicating with others and most children use social media sites to talk to their friends. There are concerns for safety and the rise of bullying on social media sites is something that needs to be kept in check so that children can feel safe and secure online.
As the new school year starts we’ve put together some top tips for keeping your child social media savvy this year:
- Ask them to show you what sites they are on. 46% of parents say their children know more about the internet than they do, so by having your child show you their profiles you can keep a closer eye on where they are chatting online.
- Privacy settings. Make sure any accounts your child has have the maximum privacy settings applied. All social media sites offer options on privacy so limit content and view to friends only.
- Keep communication open. Make sure you talk to your child about their online friends. You will understand more about who they are and your child will feel confident talking about that information with you. This dialogue will also help them to discuss things with you that might have worried them online. Children aged 8-11 are more likely to watch user generated content than they were in 2011, so being able to discuss what they have seen is important, and will also help you to monitor the content they are exposed to.
- Check photos. The biggest issue with children using social media is the fact that this content doesn’t just go away. Make sure that your child only posts photos that they would be happy to show you first. 35% of children go online unsupervised, so monitoring what your child is saying on social media is also important.
- Remind them that when they share things online they may be sharing with other people they do not know or trust. Once a message, photo or video has been shared, they won’t be able to control where it goes. You could even take a silly photo of yourself and share it on Facebook as an experiment to see where it ends up. The results are always fascinating!
- Encourage them to limit their friend list on Facebook and Snapchat.
- Talk to them about how the different platforms work. Suggest they share their ‘public’ thoughts and pictures on Twitter and Instagram, but keep the more meaningful stuff for close friends via Facebook or Snapchat.
- Finally – and this one applies to all of us – think before you post, chat, upload or download!
What do you think? Let us know in the comment box below.
By Harriet Thacker
Harriet is a marketing expert, social media enthusiast and Shake Social’s champion blogger. Struggling to maintain your own blog? We can help!
Kate Tyler is the founder of Shake Social and our long time social media expert. A regular speaker at events, Kate offers consultancy and training on a range of digital marketing topics, in particular safeguarding and using social media in an educational setting.