This article develops an insight of the factors affecting the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for mutual participation/collaboration among school stakeholders. Collaborative social networks that have a casual disregard for personal information put users at risk and afford a cybercriminal the opportunity to attack by exploiting information about the victim that is readily accessible and, with hindsight, unintended. Our research, among 380 school stakeholders, shows that students, teachers and parents are frequent users of SNSs but lack awareness of the rules and regulations, i.e. cyber safety, for SNS usage. This inability on how to deal with online hazards affects users' trust in online friends. Moreover, trust of a user in SNS is instantly influenced by the security and privacy seal provided by the SNS service provider and consequently these trust factors manipulate users' intention to use SNS for participation/collaboration among each other. © Copyright 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.