This week, Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris. It’s a well known fact that the Kardashian’s love social media and the attention that comes from it – in fact, Kim alone has millions of followers on her social media sites.

Speculation abound, a recent article talks about the fact that she was a fairly easy target thanks to her social media activity. There are also suspicions that this could be a publicity stunt, but we’ll let the police determine that.

There are some good lessons that can be taken from this incident that you can put into practice on your own social media sites, whether this is in fact a real incident or even if it’s a hoax – you may not have millions of followers, but social media has definitely made it easier for criminals to do their work.

Be humble: you may be proud of your latest big purchase, whether it’s a new car, or jewelry, or the newest electronic gadget. Be cautious when posting – it may encourage criminals scouting your page to pay a visit to your home, especially if your social media profile is wide open to the public. Kim posted an image of her ring on Instagram which was immediately viewable by anyone who wanted to see it.

 

 

Save those vacation pics for your return home: or at least try to not disclose too much about your travels, such as the date and time you’ll return home (so people don’t know how long your house will be empty), or, better yet, save the picture uploads to share once you’re back home. If you enjoy sharing your travels as they are happening, be smart about it – be sure your privacy settings are as strict as possible so the images are only visible to friends and family. One thing in the Kardashian case is that they posted pictures along the way, making it easy for people to track their location and where they would be at any given time.

Keep your location quiet: You can still share vacation pics in real time if you are sure your phone’s GPS is turned off and your captions are more generic (ie “Having a great time at the beach!”). Criminals can find ways to find out the location from where an image is taken when a phone’s GPS or locator service is turned on.

Routines are easy to spot online: in a very random moment of complete boredom, I caught a portion of an episode of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” in which the older sisters were cautioning their youngest sister, Kylie, about posting on social media while out and about. From what I gathered, she had a stalker following her (or maybe she suspected she did; I didn’t watch long enough to figure it out). Her sisters chastised her for posting pictures from the restaurant and including the location of where they were. If you tend to check in to the same places online on a regular basis, it could give criminals insight into your routine.

These seem like common sense tips, but ones that tend to fall by the wayside. When you’re a celebrity, it’s much more difficult – social media brings attention and brand awareness, and fans want to see every detail of a celebrity’s life. The Kardashian family makes their living on this type of attention, but they can still be smart about it. When it comes to social media responsibility and sharing, don’t be a Kardashian!