This is just a quick reminder to be careful about what you tweet on Twitter, what you post on Facebook, and what you talk about in your blogs. Here are a few things that you want to keep in mind when you’re sharing your private information with everybody…

• Don’t announce that you’ll be leaving town. You don’t want to announce that your house will be left empty. I’ve had friends that have had their home broken into when they were out of town. It’s no fun to come back to home that’s been ransacked.
• Be careful about using your child’s names and their nicknames in your posts or tweets. You don’t want to compromise the safety of your child by announcing their names or nicknames, it may make it easier for child predators to coax them.
• Be careful about what you fill out in those “20 things” questions. A lot of times, those questions are the same questions that you have to answer when you sign up for an account somewhere. Be weary of the personal information you share.
• Be selective about who you friend on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. It’s nice to have followers and friends, but once your network becomes too big, and you’re sharing semi-personal information, it can become dangerous.
• Don’t announce where you’ll be taking the kids for play for the day. That may make it easier for child predators to find your children.

The idea of telling everybody about what you’re doing may seem fun, but it can be dangerous when you share too much information. Online social networking is still fairly new, so your own guidelines may not be set yet. Be careful about what you share, and be careful about who you choose to share your information with. Have fun though sharing your thoughts and your pictures, social networking can certainly be fun!