By now we have all heard the horror stories of people being fired from their jobs or never being hired because of some inappropriate behavior on Facebook. The social media titan has addressed most of its privacy issues by allowing users to take control of their profile’s security, but as more social media sites begin to emerge, your e-reputation becomes increasingly less secure.

Manage your e-reputation

YouTube comments, Tweets, message board posts and everything else you post online could potentially be traced back to you in the future. Consider everything you post online as published material, forever immortalized online.

Protect yourself

Respectful online behavior may seem intuitive for some, but for others there is a large gray area on the spectrum between completely offensive content and overly watered-down, politically correct language.

It’s fine to disagree with people. It’s fine to express emotions – but always be respectful. Think twice before tweeting, “My boss sux… Staying late @ the office.” Your e-reputation is fragile, and the damage caused by an inappropriate comment will last much longer than the 10 seconds it took to write it. Even with Twitter’s 140 character limit, people have gotten into some hot water with their tweets.

I came across this blog post and thought it was helpful in terms of what it takes to protect your e-reputation: Tips for managing your personal on-line reputation.

Protect CSU

In addition to protecting yourself, protect the reputation and security of Colorado State University. Do not post anything that could endanger the reputation or personal security of any faculty member, student or member of the CSU community.

It’s not a CSU requirement, but if faculty and staff want to play it safe, they may consider placing a disclaimer on their personal social media accounts that says something along the lines, “While I am an employee at Colorado State University, comments made on this account are my own and not that of the University.”