Privacy as a Blogger

This post was sponsored by Asurion as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central.

Hello and welcome to my 947th post. Five times a week for more than three years I have been putting facts about myself on the world wide web and if you really wanted to stalk me, there is a ton of information you could put together. It was more than 18-months before I decided to use my last name in association with my blog but after talking with a few other “big timers” I realized it was a good move. That and if you Google “Kelly” “Swimming” and “Georgetown” in any combination a whole heck of a lot of information will come up about me thanks to my four years as a Division I athlete. (Along with some swim races I really wish I could forget).

So  how do you stay safe while putting so much out there? You have to be smart about it. I have often said I live in New York City, I even have a whole section of S&S devoted to it, and well, that is me and 8.406 million other people.  That is fine. I have also talked about how I made the move from Brooklyn to Manhattan two years ago, okay that narrows it down to 1.626 million. I have also written about how I live on the Upper East Side, so that brings it down to 207,543. That is a number I am totally comfortable with. When I do I post about attending events like Beautycon NYC or visiting City Hall in Tribeca it is always at a later date and I feel like my safety is covered. Where it gets a bit dodgy is social media and geo-targeting locations while you are currently there. 

On Instagram it is easy to select your location, although I am still sad you can no longer make it a website though, and on Facebook it is also easy to add. When posting to Sparkles and Shoes Facebook page I rarely link to location as I usually include a URL to my blog instead but I sometimes I post to my regular, personal Facebook page where I am connected with a thousand friends, acquaintances, and even a few real life friend / bloggers including Samantha of The Samantha Show, Alyssa of Runway Chef, Stephanie Wolfe of The Vintage Modern Wife, and Andrea of Glam Hungry Mom.  When I am posting to account I usually geo-tag the post I wait until after I have left the establishment to publish.  The one social media outlet that gets me a bit worried with geo-tagging is Twitter.  No matter how many times I uncheck the little locate button it still tags my location. 

Last night I decided to finally do something about it.  I contacted Asurion Premier Support and had a wonderful 15 minute conversation with Dylan . If you have not heard of them, Asurion is the leading provider across Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint for device protection on all your favorite electronics from cellphones, tablets and laptops to gaming consoles and speakers. When your device is ensured a call or text message chat with a tech advisor is included! 

After pressing call I was connected with Dylan within 60 seconds and his Tennessee accent made our entire chat quite enjoyable as he easily walked me through how to change the Twitter geo-location setting on my phone.  If you have an Android the Asurion folks can actually remote in and take over the device but with the new iPhone Apple blocks this feature so Dylan easily walked me through the steps over the phone.  It turns out there are two different ways to change the geo-location, one in the Twitter settings and one in the main iPhone settings under privacy > location services > Twitter.  And before I hung up Dylan was even nice enough to wait while I posted a new tweet to make sure it worked!  

As the holiday’s come around I am sure I will have more questions on techy gadgets but after using the service this is a must have for parents or grandparents. And even as a blogger and token Millennial I will admit even sometimes I need tech help and it is nice to know that the Premier Support is a free service for all Asurion customers. And if just one of the four tech items on my Christmas wish list makes it into my stocking I will be giving them a call back!