I’m lucky enough to work for WebDevStudios as a Support Engineer. We are a fully distributed company. That means we all work from home. WebDevStudios has been 100% remote for over a decade, and we’ve all learned some important lessons and acquired expert knowledge.

Before we jump in, though, what exactly is cybersecurity? To oversimply it a bit for the purposes of this article, it’s basically best practices for defending your computers, servers, corporate assets, and electronic systems or data from malicious actors who try to take advantage of vulnerable systems. With even more people working online, there are even more scammers and hackers trying to take advantage of this terrible situation. Apply these cybersecurity tips for remote workers and keep your computer safe during all this.

Use Antivirus Software

You should already be running antivirus software, but if not, that needs to be your number-one priority. Everyone is human and we are going to make mistakes and click on things without thinking or download a file from someone else who isn’t running antivirus software.

There are a lot of great antivirus software brands, and your company may even provide licenses for one of the popular antivirus packages. If not, however, know that there are free options for every operating system (Mac, PC, Linux). For the purposes of this article, we’ll mostly be focused on Mac and PC.

Free options are great, but having solid antivirus protection is what is super important. There’s a reason I started this list of tips with this one. If you aren’t running antivirus, even viewing an image can be a potential point of attack. Someone could infect your system with a virus or malware and cause all kinds of damage. Viruses can do things, such as copy sensitive data (like usernames and passwords, especially financial ones) and send it to the hacker’s server where they collect and then sell your information on the black market, usually via the dark web.

Malware can be almost as bad and is often used to insert intrusive ads on your system. Both types can also use your computer as a zombie to try and infect other systems. So, do yourself a favor and make sure you are running antivirus software. The free ones are indeed pretty good, but like with anything, you get what you pay for. Check with your employer’s IT department to see if they provide licenses to a specific antivirus software. If not, the premium options are often affordable at around $30-$50 per year and are worth every penny.

Trust No One

Next, before we get into another favorite bit of software, do not trust anyone online. It should be your default position. The number-one source of system intrusion is typically employees not being vigilant with sensitive information. Something innocuous, like clicking on a random link, can lead to your computer getting infected.

If you get a link from someone you don’t know, DO NOT OPEN IT! This is often a “phishing” scheme where the attacker learns about you or tricks you into installing something you shouldn’t by getting you to visit a special URL (link) designed to compromise your system.

You should also guard your own and your company’s private information. Use common sense and be suspect of anyone you don’t know online. To complicate things even further, you have to watch out for people pretending to be people you know. Just the other day, I got a Facebook friend request from my aunt and it turned out to be someone pretending to be her. She was asking me for money, and red flags went up immediately. I checked and sure enough, my aunt and I were already friends on Facebook. This new account was trying to pretend to be her to scam our family out of money. Stay aware!

Use Strong Passwords and a Password Manager

Speaking of sensitive information this next tip is all about passwords. First and foremost, you should be using unique passwords for everything. I know this is a major hassle, and remembering a password for every site seems impossible. You’re right; it is. That’s why we recommend using a password manager like 1Password or LastPass.

Once you install these apps, they’ll remember all your passwords for you and store them in a secure vault. Then, you just need to remember ONE password to get access to all your passwords. This protects you in a number of ways.

For example, if you do somehow get a virus that searches your computer for passwords, it won’t be able to find them as your passwords will be inside a secure, encrypted vault. It would take a hacker many decades to break into with today’s computers.

Also, using a different password for every service means that if one service gets hacked, and your password is leaked, then it won’t effect any other accounts you have. This is super important, as it seems like there isn’t a month that goes by where some service or another isn’t hacked and customer data stolen or exposed. Bottom line: use strong, unique passwords and store them in a secure password manager like 1Password or LastPass.

Use a VPN

This cybersecurity tip is a little more technical. A VPN is a virtual private network that you can connect to and then browse the internet and complete your work safely. You’ll need a VPN service to do this, and they usually have their own software, as well.

A VPN provides protection against a number of exploits like people “sniffing packets” from your computer to steal passwords or other sensitive information like bank accounts. This is more critical when you are working on a public network, like at a coffee shop or airport, where other people you don’t know are on the same shared network as you.

With a VPN, you connect to a virtual private network and then your connection is encrypted and made anonymous. It is much more difficult for hackers to gain access or see your passwords with an active VPN. Remember, when you are connected to any network, including your own cable/fiber internet, your service provider can see all your activity, as well. A VPN will keep your internet usage private and protect your connection from malicious hackers.

Don’t Share Your Zoom Links Publicly

I shouldn’t have to even be saying this, but some unscrupulous folks have decided to invade unprotected Zoom chats (and other open chat systems) and play pranks on the calls, or worse, listen in and gain inside secrets. So far, it’s mostly been stupid pranks, but one of our executives was on a public meetup where someone broke into the chat and played pornography. There really is serious potential for someone to wreak havoc and expose (pun intended) you and your company to liability or harassment all the way to corporate espionage.

Zoom has taken steps to lock things down by default, so make sure you have the latest version of Zoom (or any app you are running, for that matter; staying up to date is part of the security process). If you do have to share your Zoom link, make sure you require passwords to join or that you manually approve people who join your chat (that’s now the default behavior in Zoom). You can read more about “zoombombing” on WikiPedia. It sounds cute, like photobombing, but it’s so much worse!

Hide Your WiFi

Wait, what? Hide my WiFi? Yeah, hide it so that not just anyone can probe your network.

You should already be using a WiFi password (and hopefully a strong one; I know typing them sucks!), but if your network SSID (network ID or network name) is set to “broadcast,” that means attackers know it exists and can start probing for ways to get in. By changing your network settings to have the SSID to not broadcast, when anyone wants to join your network, you’ll need to personally tell them the network name and the password.

That also means that strangers sitting outside your house can’t see your network just by parking outside at the curb. This is a bit of “security by obscurity,” and I don’t usually recommend that, but with WiFi, it’s an extra step that can really help keep your network more secure. Changing this setting requires you to have admin access to your router. If you have one from your internet service provider, the password is likely on the side or back of the modem/router provided.

Have a Strong Security Policy and Follow It

Even if your company doesn’t have an official security policy you should set out guidelines for yourself. Everything is online these days and most of these tips will apply to anything you do online. Make sure you have a least a basic understanding of how to work securely online.

Back Up Your Computer

I know this doesn’t sound like much of a security tip. I even debated making it the first item in the list; that’s how important it is. No matter how careful you are, things happen. The last thing you want to do is lose important work or data that can’t easily be recovered.

A bad virus can infect and delete or encrypt data in such a way that you can no longer access is. They may even try to ransom the data back to you in extreme cases! So, make sure you are backing up your computer. You should be doing this already.

I personally have a cheap USB drive that I back up my computer to weekly, and I use an online service call BackBlaze to automatically back up my computer to the cloud. It works pretty well. There are other services out there, but please, back up your computer locally and remotely for the best coverage.

Keep Software and Apps Up To Date

Make sure you keep your software and apps up to date! I can’t believe I left this out originally, as it’s super important. Out of date software is one of the most common ways a computer system gets compromised. My advice is turn on auto updates if you can (I do this for all my mobile apps any software that supports it), and if not, you can set a reminder to check for updates at least once per week.

I usually do my updates and backups on the same day. I set a reminder for Sunday evening and then do any software updates that need to be done and then hook up my USB drive to get a local backup. Thanks to Nick Franklin via Twitter for reminding me of this one!

Some Quick Bonus Cybersecurity Tips for Remote Workers

• If you are out in public, make sure people can’t easily see sensitive data on your screen.
• Use encryption where possible (example: you can use PGP encryption to encrypt your emails).
• Don’t leave your device open/logged in when you walk away from it, especially in public.
• Don’t use/trust a USB device you found or were given by someone you don’t know.

Lastly, remember that human behavior is the weakest link in almost every security policy. Stay alert, aware and suspicious of everything to improve your chances of not getting hacked, infected or otherwise compromised. This is true whether you are working from home or once you go back to the office.

Did you enjoy these cybersecurity tips for remote workers? Read more of our remote work articles and stay safe!

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When I’m not slinging code for WordPress here at WebDevStudios (WDS) and Maintainn, my wife and I run a small online store where we sell our handmade leather goods. We’ve been at if for just over three years now, and social media drives 70%-80% of our sales. We rank pretty well for some key search terms in our niche, but even with Google’s domination of the search market, it doesn’t send us anywhere near the sales that social media does. That’s not to say you should ignore trying to rank well in search engines, just that you should definitely put some energy into social media, as well.

I’m going to share some of what works well for our shop and hope it can help you get more sales from social media. A lot of this is going to seem obvious once you read it. Most good advice is, but sometimes you just need to hear someone else say it. It’s just like when you ask someone how they lost weight. You already know the answer is that they ate better and exercised. There is no magic method to losing weight. It’s like that with social media, too. The things you need to do are simple, and you probably already have a pretty good idea of what you should be doing. The biggest challenge is sticking with it. Don’t get discouraged if a social media post doesn’t do well. Just keep at it and put in the work. That’s what will set you apart from everyone else.

Be visual.

Social media is a very visual medium. You are competing with not only people in your niche but with every other social media post in your potential customer’s feed. They are seeing memes, family photos, videos, ads, and more. Having great images or video to share will give you an instant advantage over someone else in your niche who’s not taking the time to get great content to share. Everything you do to market your shop starts here. Not only does it help you stand out in your customers’ feeds, it also tells them a lot about what you have to offer with just a quick glance of the product. Modern smart phones can take great pictures; you don’t need an expensive camera. Instead, take time to plan out your shots, develop a style to suit your brand, and make sure you have great lighting. Tell a story with your pictures. Your customers will engage with you more, and you’ll increase your sales.

Be seen.

Even with the great products and photos you still need to make sure your posts get seen. There’s no simple algorithm to this. Sometimes a post will be popular, and other times people won’t notice it at all. Some of this is just random luck.

You have more control over being seen than you might think. You need to consider when you post. Most people are online during the day throughout the week. On nights and weekends, people get away from their computers more. You also need to know your customers and what works for them. Start with posting during the day, Mondays through Fridays. But experiment with posting during other times, too.

For our site, I do most of our stuff during the day, but I like post a couple at night and on weekends, too. With our customers, we pick up a lot of extra sales and engagement this way because not all of our competitors post after normal business hours. You also need to go where your customers are. For us, that’s Instagram and Pinterest, with a little bit of Facebook. Look at where your potential customers spend their time and be active on those social media websites.

Use hashtags.

You also have to hashtag your posts on most social media services, especially Instagram and Twitter. Think of hashtags as adding keywords that your customers might use in a search. Users click on these hashtags and browse similar posts. When they do, this click may lead to your posts on the “Discover” or “Trending” pages related to these hashtags. I can’t stress how important adding those hashtags are. Hashtags let your social media posts be seen by people who aren’t on your feed and increases your potential reach.

Here is an example of what an Instagram page for the hashtag #leatherwork looks like. Using a hashtag like this can land my Instagram post on this page, which is then seen by potential customers.

Pro Tip: Keep a note of hashtags on your phone so that you can just copy and paste them. This will save you tons of time. I have several sets of hashtags for each of our products. Copying and pasting streamlines my efforts. Work smarter, not harder.

Be efficient.

Running a business means that you have lots to get done. While marketing through social media should be a high priority, it does take time. Here are two tips that help me:

Recycle images and content.

When you take photos, create a batch of photos in a single session so you can use them over the next couple of weeks or even months. Reuse and re-purpose images or content you’ve created in the past in new ways.

Schedule in advance.

Take advantage of scheduling social media whenever possible. For example, Twitter and Instagram both allow you to save drafts so you could create several posts, save them, and publish later. But I like to go a step further and queue up posts with a tool like HootSuite. It’s a paid service, but it saves you a lot of time sharing your work on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. At WDS, we currently use Buffer but also recommend Social Web Suite.

If you are a little more tech savvy you could save some money and use a service like IFTTT (If This Then That), which has applets to auto share your posts from one social media service to all the others. I use this personally and for our shop.

Make a plan.

Even if you end up scheduling your posts in advance, you need to also consider how often you post. Like most suggestions, this is going to depend on your customers and the niche you are in. For ours, I post one to two times a day when we are at our most active. Eventually, I’m planning on posting a little bit more frequently. Our audience is hungry for this kind of content and the more we post the more sales we make, but you can’t just spam the feed all day long. It’s a big turn off for me, personally, as a consumer. I want to avoid doing that to our customers.

I suggest picking a social media schedule that you can maintain. Repetition is also key. Your customers will learn your social media schedule, and they’ll be on the lookout for your next post. If you want to test out posting more often, just start with a slight increase and add more posts slowly and test the reaction. If you keep getting positive results, then keep it up. If not, slow down a bit. It’s pretty simple.

You can’t automate engagement. That’s a good thing.

One of the hardest parts about marketing your brand with social media is engaging with your customers, even though it’s very rewarding. There’s no easy way to automate engagement; and even if you could, I wouldn’t recommend it.

We’ve gotten tremendous benefit from talking to our customers through our social media channels. It’s a great way to provide customer support and generate sales leads. People love that they can reach out to us and they’ll get a real person to interact with.

I’ve had chats with our customers about the most random topics. This helps build customers for life. You’ll only get out of social media what you put into it. Don’t be afraid to share your personal side. Our customers love seeing behind-the-scenes stuff, such as our day-to-day life and other non-product related photos.

In our case, we, ourselves, are our brand, but even if you are a big eCommerce brand, make sure to show off the human side of your business. Customers connect with people and stories. Making those personal connections can build life-long fans. You can’t buy that with marketing dollars. You have to earn that. And anyone who’s run a any kind of business for long knows that it’s easier to keep customers than it is to get new ones. Sharing your brand’s journey through social media lets you connect with them on a personal level and grow that relationship over the course of months or even years.

Email marketing still works!

Email marketing has been around forever. It doesn’t seem as sexy as social media. However, it’s still around because it works!

While it’s not social media, I wanted to include it in this article because email marketing drives a lot of sales for us, and we use it to drive our customers to our social media profiles. So if you are on the fence, make sure you have an email list for your shop. Just don’t abuse it. We only send out mailings six-eight times per year. You should do what makes sense for your business, but don’t ignore email marketing or you’ll be missing out on sales.

You don’t have to just sell products with your list. We use it to promote giveaways, social media accounts, highlight work we’ve done, and share content that we put out there on social media or our site. Try it out and see what works for your customers.

I hope this gives you a good starting point for using social media in your digital marketing efforts. If you have any questions or suggestions of things you’ve tried, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

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