Image at http://www.glasbergen.com

Now that we learned to make the occasional backup of the files on our computers using external hard disks and — the audacious ones among us — using cloud services (BTW: check out Wuala for backup. Files get encrypted on your machine and will be packet-distributed to their storage computers. Like DropBox, just safer) here comes the next backup pattern: Backing up your Social Media.

Lou Dubois (@lou_dubois) explains in Inc.com:

“Online networking and collaboration have become a dominant part of our daily routines. According to a recent study conducted by Nielsen and released in early August, social networking occupies twice as much of our time online as any other activity. Facebook and Twitter alone account for 22.7% of our time on the web, with online games and e-mail a distant second and third, respectively.

“But while the data you upload and share is inherently personal to you and your network, you don’t actually own the information. It all lives on the “cloud,” and if any of those services were to crash, you could lose everything you’ve ever contributed to the communities. That is why backing up your social data is just as important as backing up the hard drive of your computer. You are in the minority of computer users if you backup your data on an external hard drive or if you use a Mac and utilize Time Machine. If you back up your social data, you’re in an even more elite group.”

He continues introducing two of the available Social Media backup tools:

• SocialSafe.net
• Backupify.com

Social Source Commons addsthe following tools:

Image at leo-backup.com

• ArchiveFacebook
• BlogBackupr
• FlickrEdit
• SocialBackster
• SocialSafe
• TubeSucker
• Tweetake

Graymatterminute.com adds pondering: “If you’re living a digital life, probably worth leveraging the digital tools to back it up, eh? No pressure. Just something to think about.”

image at officialdps.co.uk

Read the full reviews here:

1. How to Back Up Your Social Media Accounts | Inc.com.
2. Social Media Backup Tools – Social Source Commons
3. Social Media Backup Tools | GrayMatter Minute
4. Sicherheitsnetz – Alle Tools zur Sicherung Ihrer Daten bei Google+, Twitter und Facebook

This will give you some tools to plan your backups for the cloud. Most reviewers gave high marks to Backupify. You might want to start there and visit some of the other tools to find out about additional capabilities.

Remember the Beatles’ song (modified on verynicejokes.com):

YESTERDAY

Image at service.bz-berlin.de

—————
Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There’s not half the files there used to be,
And there’s a milestone
hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.

Now all my data’s gone
and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
The need for back-ups seemed so far away.
I knew my data was all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

Related articles

• European cloud storage with Swiss protection (sciencetext.com)
• Check out what’s new at Backupify – Added administrative controls and more (backupify.com)
• Backupify nabs new $5M round to back up social media data (venturebeat.com)
• Backupify now backs up Google Chats (backupify.com)
• Backup your Gmail, Twitter, Facebook Online for Free using Backupify (tipsblogger.com)
• Backupify Offers Business Backup For Google Apps Data (informationweek.com)
• Preventing Data Loss in the Cloud: What Customers Want (backupify.com)
• Wuala vs Dropbox: a decision making (ssrebelious.wordpress.com)
• Dropbox vs. the Alternatives: Which Online Syncing Service Is Right for You? (lifehacker.com)
• How To Store Your Files in The Cloud – And Why You’d Want To (readwriteweb.com)