How to Avoid Costly Social-Media Mistakes (and Protect Your Profiles)

Here are some tips to help keep your Facebook page safe:

• Always, always make sure you log out of a Facebook session when you are finished.
• If possible, avoid using shared computers (at Internet cafés, libraries, your friends’ houses, etc.) to access your Facebook account. Environments like this make it easy to become distracted and forget to log out of your account.
• Be extremely judicious about who you grant administration privileges to on your fan page. The more people that are administrators, the more risk that someone’s account will be hacked.
• Never check the “remember password” box unless you are using a computer that only you, or trusted others, have access to.
• Be cautious when using Facebook on your phone. Remember, if you lose your phone and someone finds it, that person will have access to your Facebook account. If you do chose to have Facebook on your phone, make sure to not leave your mobile Facebook sessions active. Instead, log in when you need to access the Facebook app, log out when you’re done and be sure you have password protection on your phone.
• Change your Facebook password every month. Create passwords that are complex, using numbers, capital letters and symbols.

This isn't meant to seem alarmist, but the risk is 100 percent real. Anyone who invests time and money into Facebook pages needs to make security a top priority.