How to Back Up Your Social Media Content

 Do you have valuable social media posts you don’t want to lose?

Want to learn how to back up your social media profiles?

Downloading your social media profiles, content, and contacts will ensure you always have what you need to keep your business running, no matter what platform or features come and go.

In this article, you’ll discover how to download copies of your social media content and profiles.

Why You Need to Back Up Your Content

It’s important to back up your social media and long-form content both locally and to the cloud, whether it’s Google Drive, Dropbox, or other storage networks. Here’s why:

You never know when the server that houses your content might go down, meaning a delay in delivery or loss of your main website, blog, and other content. Or what if a site you’ve been contributing content to gets shut down, sold, or otherwise changed to where your content is no longer published?

Also consider the possibility that a social network might turn off a particular feature or the entire network itself (Blab, for example). Imagine spending years building up your blog using Facebook Notes or LinkedIn Publisher just to find out one of those services is being turned off?

If you start backing up your content now, you’ll be in better shape than many of your marketing colleagues in handling unforeseen events. You’ll also get more awareness of your content as an added bonus.

#1: Save Your Long-form Content

The next time you write a blog post, no matter what word-processing program or CMS you use, save the final version of your content to a Word (or other) document that you can save locally and to a cloud-based file service. For example, if you write long-form content in Google Docs, download the file as a Word doc when you’re finished.

If you’re a content producer who typically writes content for one main outlet (website or social network) and uses the rest of the social and blogging networks to promote that content, you might want to use a special naming convention to save it:

• Publication Outlet 1 – Title 1
• Publication Outlet 1 – Title 2
• Publication Outlet 2 – Title 1
• Publication Outlet 2 – Title 2
• LinkedIn Publisher – Title 1
• LinkedIn Publisher – Title 2
• Facebook Notes – Title 1
• Facebook Notes – Title 2
• Medium – Title 1
• Medium – Title 2

Now, suppose you find out Publication Outlet 2 has closed its doors or Facebook decided to turn off the Notes feature. Because you’ve saved your posts from that publication (or that feature) on your Google Drive and local hard drive, you don’t have to scramble to save your content or worry you’ve lost it.

Your backup system also helps you maintain a library of topics and sites where you’ve published so you can more easily keep track of your content. For example, if you’ve been creating text-only content but want to start doing video, go through your Google Drive or local hard drive to see what topics you’ve done as posts and create videos for them instead.

Your content library also comes in handy for repurposing content. For example, let’s say that Publication Outlet 1 is your blog. Some blogs will allow you to republish posts from your blog to theirs.

You could also take your posts and publish them to your LinkedIn Publisher, Facebook Notes, Medium, and other networks. Not only will you get more visibility for your content, but you’ll also ensure that if one website or network goes down, your audience can always find your content elsewhere.

#2: Back Up Your Mobile Videos

Whenever you create videos on your smartphone for Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and so forth, it’s important not only to upload the videos to those networks, but also to save a copy of your social videos to your smartphone after recording or after the video is published.

For example, after you finish a Facebook Live video, depending on the smartphone app you use, you may see a screen like the one above prompting you to save your video with the download icon (to the right of the blue HD Upload On button in the image).

Or after you record a segment of an Instagram story, save it by tapping the Save icon at the bottom left.

At the end of the day, download your entire Snapchat story as a video by tapping the download icon to the right of your story.

You may be able to reshare these videos on other video sharing networks, depending on whether they allow you to upload video from your phone. For example, upload a good Snapchat story to Facebook to encourage people to follow you there and engage your Facebook fans.

The same thing goes for non-mobile video content: back up non-mobile videos locally and to the cloud. Don’t trust it to just one social network. If there’s a way to download the video (like Blab used to allow video hosts to download audio and video files of their blabs), do it. Or look for browser extensions that let you scrape video content on a page if you have to. Don’t lose your videos!

#3: Capture Testimonials

You may remember a time when LinkedIn company pages had an option to capture your customers’ product and service recommendations. It was a wonderful way to get testimonials for your business until LinkedIn decided to shut the feature down (when they turned off the Products & Services tab on company pages).

Businesses lost all of those recommendations they spent time collecting.

That’s why you need to find a way to capture your testimonials. For testimonials on social media, start by taking screenshots of them (with a tool like Jing) and saving them to your hard drive.

Browser extensions like Open Screenshot (for Chrome) allow you to capture an entire web page, which is helpful for capturing your complete list of LinkedIn recommendations. Be sure to expand all of your recommendations first.

The screenshot will end up looking something like this:

Use this technique to capture entire pages and profiles and then crop them to the sections you want to feature, such as recommendations from LinkedIn on your website. Use individual recommendations for specific products or services, or the entire screenshot for a testimonials page.

Of course, you also need to consider testimonials on other websites. Save the Facebook posts, like the tweets, heart the Instagram photos, recommend the Medium posts, and otherwise find a way to capture all of the positive social media comments about your business, products, or services.

Once you’ve done this, you can either use the screenshots themselves or services like Spectoos to display testimonials from a variety of social media and other sources in a more consistent format. You can embed this as a widget or a full-sized testimonial page. If you have good reviews scattered about, this will help you put them all in one place, neatly and 100% verifiable.

Business Directories and Review Networks

If you’re a local business, apply this same advice to business directories and review networks. For example, it’s a great way to back up your Yelp reviews or unhide those positive “not currently recommended” reviews (which you can find by clicking the link at the bottom of your first page of Yelp reviews).

If your “not currently recommended” reviews are mostly negative, you probably shouldn’t draw attention to them. If they’re mostly positive, you probably should. It all depends on what’s hidden there.

#4: Download Profiles and Pages

Several social media networks allow you to download your profiles and pages. Here are a few of the many download options for the top social networks and why you should use them.

Facebook Personal Profile

A treasure trove of information is available for your viewing pleasure in your Facebook settings. Click the link to download your profile data.

On the next page, click Start My Archive. Depending on how much content you have on your Facebook profile, it may take a while to process your archive.

You’ll get an email from Facebook when your file is ready to download.

When you unzip your download, you’ll find three folders: photos, videos, and HTML. These folders support the main index.htm document.

If you click on the index.htm file, you’ll see a stripped-down, text-based version of your Facebook profile data. This is the way Open Graph sees your profile.

You also get the Facebook-optimized versions of media (images and video) you’ve uploaded to your Facebook profile.

Facebook Business Page

The process to download your Facebook business page is similar to your profile. Go to the General tab of your main page settings and click the Edit link next to the Download Page option.

Then click a series of links and buttons, prompting you throughout the process.

When your archive is ready, you’ll receive a notification.

The download file for your Facebook page will have more folders than your Facebook profile download…

…but it contains similar information in a similar format.

Unfortunately, you don’t get the Holy Grail, which is a list of your fans. You actually get more engagement information (such as the comments on photos you’ve posted) from your Facebook profile archive than from your Facebook page archive.

Twitter Profile

On your main Twitter account Settings page (or on the covert Twitter Data page under your Twitter account settings), click the option to download your Twitter archive.

Then click Request Your Archive.

When it’s ready, Twitter will send you an email directing you to download your own unique Twitter archive with stats from your first tweet to today.

Or you can get all of your tweets in a CSV file.

LinkedIn Professional Profile

LinkedIn has two options for downloading your LinkedIn profile data: a 10-minute quick option and a 24-hour detailed option. You can find out more about the amount of information you receive for each option in LinkedIn’s Data Export article.

To request your archive, click your LinkedIn profile and select Privacy & Settings. Under Account > Basics, click the option to get an archive of your data.

Note that the 10-minute option could take longer, depending on the size of your account, number of contacts, and so on. Effectively, with either option, LinkedIn condenses your profile into CSV files.

Having your connections’ email addresses (in the Connections.csv file) is especially important. If you were to lose your LinkedIn account, you could use those email addresses to reconnect with everyone. You can also add those email addresses to your advertising custom audiences. Just don’t add them to your email marketing list!

Other Networks

The ability to download the information from your social profiles and pages lies in your settings. If you have profiles or pages on networks where you’re sharing a lot of content that isn’t included in your Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn backups, be sure to look for other ways to make your content reusable, rather than just one-time use.

#5: Export Your Contacts

Last but not least, think of every source of contacts you have. Export and download your contacts from databases and email lists (Gmail, Outlook, Salesforce, GetResponse, etc.) on a regular basis.

You never know when your account could get messed up and your valuable business contacts lost forever. And you can always use those email addresses for retargeting with Facebook custom audiences, Twitter’s tailored audiences, and so on.

What This Means for Your Business

Is there ROI in backing up your content? Maybe not. But if you ever lose content due to a particular website going down, that’s wasted hours of someone’s time on your dollar. So if you’re not backing up your content, you’re losing money and hurting your overall ROI. Gain ROI by keeping your content safe and looking for ways to repurpose it, or simply let it inspire you to create more!

In Conclusion

While it may seem a bit paranoid, you don’t want to find yourself locked out of a social account without access to your most valuable pieces of content and out of reach of your powerful relationships. Make sure you set a reminder on your calendar for regular social media, content, and contact backups.

What do you think? What tactic do you find most useful when backing up your social network or content marketing? Let us know in the comments!

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How to Calm Your Content Anxiety in 5 Simple Steps

 It was an early morning of coffee, loud music, and blasting the internet with everything I could muster.
I had already published a few articles on my website, skipping the draft process. Then I scrambled to share them on every social media network and group chat that I could think of.
Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Slack channels, Facebook groups, email newsletter(s) — you know the drill.
It was a copy/paste nightmare, but that’s what the “experts” had told me to do. The familiar phrases of “Content is king!” and “Blog every day!” were among the many maxims running through my mind that morning.
We are often told that your frequent presence online is vitally important. More interaction, more connection, more conversion.
This is partially true, but experience has taught me that excessive presence damages both your authority and your own personal fulfillment.

More content is not always better content

I was on a content-production rampage during this particular reinvention (yes, I’ve done this “online thing” quite a few times, and from scratch). Yet, I was just as internally frustrated as when I wasn’t producing any content at all.

The problem — obvious now in hindsight — is that more does not always mean better.

It’s the most basic of truths, known by everyone you’ve ever met, yet contrary to the mainstream teachings of many online “gurus.”
Instead of wasting your time with fruitless effort, here are five steps that will help calm your content anxiety and safeguard you against our shared tendency to believe frequency trumps quality.

Step #1: Adopt the “One-day-queue” rule

Slowing down might sound easy, but it’s far from it.
If you’re like me, your typical routine is to go from inspiration to creation to production in the same morning (thanks to that gallon of coffee).
That habit makes sense when you’re passionate about your project. Unfortunately, it may stunt your capacity to produce meaningful work for your audience.
Instead, live by what I call the “one-day-queue” rule:

When you are inspired, resist the urge to create and publish on the same day.

This includes blog posts too — don’t rush to publish an idea that you haven’t fully developed.
Hold back to ensure you’re publishing the most relevant, useful content.

Step #2: Work with an editor

If you write any type of content, working with an editor should be a priority.
Your editor can shield you from your own impulsiveness and prevent you from publishing a post on your blog or sending your email newsletter in a fury.
When you get in the habit of having someone else review your content before you publish, you’re forced to slow down your process.
Editors also don’t have to be expensive. If you ask a friend, coworker, or family member, he or she might even review your work for free to support you.
An “editor” who has an eye for polished content will help you craft your best work — and any cost will be money well-spent.

Step #3: Schedule social media updates

This is quite difficult for me because I impulsively tweet a lot, but scheduling your social media updates helps you practice something I like to call “funneling your impulse.”
What do I mean by that?
Let’s say you’re scanning — you guessed it — your Twitter timeline, and you get an idea for a tweet.
Instead of satisfying the urge to post that tweet immediately, funnel your impulse through a filter by scheduling it for at least 10 minutes in the future.
In that time, you might rethink posting that tweet and therefore have time to delete or rephrase it.
That’s an option you wouldn’t have had if you just impulsively posted the tweet.

Step #4: Learn the art of observation

Simply observing may be difficult for some creatives, but it’s undeniably required.
Discovering and examining your audience’s needs will help you serve them better.
Spend more time watching and less time building.

Don’t build for the sake of production; build for the sake of creating a solution.

Solve your audience’s problems, and you won’t have to shout so loud.

Step #5: Focus on the entire process, not just the product

I once mentioned in a newsletter email on mobile-first design that web designers should focus more on the process than the product.
It’s understandable that we have a natural tendency to be preoccupied with that glorious finished product — part of the process, even.
But our motivator can often become a distraction and we neglect other important steps.
Aim to balance the time you spend on your marketing efforts and creating your products.

Better content, at a manageable pace

Following these guidelines has allowed me to craft high-quality content at a more regular pace, and with less effort.
I don’t write a blog post and publish it the same day, or blast out an email prematurely, just to find several typos in each of them the next day.
Instead, I feel confident knowing that the content I do publish (or cancel) has been carefully reviewed.
In turn, those who follow me receive better content, read articulated and refined writing, and experience an overall stronger presentation.


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The Surprisingly Best Times to Send Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Long-standing advice amongst email marketers when asked, “When is the best time to send email?” has always been, “Tuesday through Thursday morning, between 8 and 10am.” Sure, it’s common knowledge throughout the industry that people tend to open their email in the mornings, but “the times, they are a-changin’,” as Bob Dylan would say. Let’s visit some current email marketing trends that are creating shifts in open rates, and how they’ll impact your next email send.

AdWeek Infographic based on Experian study

A 2012 Experian email marketing benchmark study across all industries found that recipients are surprisingly active late at night. Unique open rates averaged 21.7% from 8pm to 11:59pm and 17.6% for 12am to 4am. Moreover, this late night group was more likely to click-through, with open rates of 4.2% and 3.2%, respectively. These night owls also had the highest click through rates for all times of day. Revenue per email was also the highest in the 8pm to 11:59pm group.

Additionally, in 2015, Experian’s quarterly email marketing benchmark release showed that 54% of emails are now opened on a mobile device, and a 2014 ExactTarget mobile behavior report found mobile activity peaks between 9pm to 12am. With consumers becoming more and more active on their mobile devices, especially outside of standard nine to five working hours spent at an office desktop, testing sends outside the traditional morning hours is essential.

As for which day of the week performed best, emails sent on Mondays had the highest ROI, but emails sent on Friday had a higher click through rate. Ironically, Saturday and Sunday had the lowest volume rates, but the highest open and click through rates in the study. So even though the weekend was not the most popular time to send emails, those who opened were much more likely to engage with it and click through or purchase.

Based on these findings, you might want to experiment with sending your emails at unconventional times – such as 11pm or 6pm and on the weekend– to see if it yields better results.

Weekend Warriors

Fewer promotional emails are sent on the weekends. This has created an opportunity for some businesses to scoop up some email love when there is less competition.

Experian’s email marketing study found that recipients responded more to promotional emails they received on the weekends – when the send volume was the lowest. The unique open rate for Saturday and Sunday was 17.8% for both days, the highest percentages of the week.

Email data from Harland Clarke also supported this finding in their recent study. Although 26.9% of emails were sent on Wednesdays, recipients viewed only 15.6% of those emails, whereas Saturday (a day when only 5.5% of emails were sent), they viewed 32.5%.

Before you change all your email launches to Saturday and Sunday, we recommend you test it first. (Remember that open rates on these days are still lower.) Try splitting your list in half and send the same email to group A on Sunday then group B on Monday or Tuesday. Repeat this a few times to see where you get better results.

Mobile Matters

The same study by Experian we touched upon earlier found that not only are 54% of all emails viewed on a mobile device, but this percentage is on the rise, growing two percent between June and September 2015. Because mobile click through rates are lower, you want to be sure your call to action is clear and direct, and that your links are easy to spot and click (no matter what time of day you’re sending).

Harland Clarke’s study also found that the email open rates depended on the device the recipient is using. They found that tablet users, for example, were more like to open emails outside of business hours (from 5pm to 8am), while desktop users were more likely to open during business hours. Tablet users were the most active from 8 to 9pm, while desktop users and smartphone users were most active between 3 and 4pm.

Finally, when considering the importance of mobile in your email sends, remember that if your customers can’t read your emails, they’re not likely to continue to interact with them, affecting your future campaigns. Litmus found that by testing a non-responsive versus responsive email design, they were able to increase click-throughs by 130%.

So consider your audience in your email marketing. Try sending a split test to half of your list in the morning during work hours and the other half at 7 or 8pm and note any differences. Be sure your emails (and landing pages) are mobile-friendly.

Timing Isn’t Everything

If you’re noticing a dip in your open rates, maybe other factors are contributing to the decline. Here are some additional email marketing tips to help with your open and click through rates:

1.    Test your email to make sure it’s rendering properly in multiple browsers and email service providers (Email on Acid offers an easy way to do this if you want to save some time.)

2.    Review your email list. How old is it? Are there emails that should be removed? How can you grow your email list effectively? Here are some tips for good organic email list growth: 10 Steps to Build Your Email List the Right Way

3.    Are you effectively rocking your subject line? The subject line is your one brief opportunity to get someone to open your email. Be sure you know the best practices when creating this magic line. Check out these helpful tips on creating your subject line.

4.    Frequency. Are you sending too often? Be sure to play it cool and segment your lists so you aren’t bombarding your recipients with unwanted email (or, dare we say spam!)

So when is the best time to send email? As you can see, there is no one right answer. If you’re ready to see some improvements, start by doing some simple email split tests and see which times your recipients respond to best.


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Millennials’ Email Marketing Dislikes Are (Mostly) the Same as Everyone Else’s

 Despite millennials having a reputation for being different from everyone else, their email behavior is very similar to that of older generations when it comes to the things that drive them to unsubscribe and report emails as spam.

Our Adapting to Consumers’ New Definition of Spam research, which surveyed more than 1,300 American adults, found that roughly the same percentage of millennials (age 18-29) and those from older generations (age 30+) have…

• Unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because they received too many or irrelevant emails (66% for millennials vs. 67% for older generations)
• Unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because the emails or website didn’t display or work well on their smartphone (52% vs. 51%)
• Unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because the brand’s mobile app didn’t work well (41% vs. 40%)
• Marked a brand’s emails as spam because they didn’t knowingly and willingly subscribe to receive the emails (52% vs. 51%)
• Marked a brand’s emails as spam because they couldn’t easily figure out how to unsubscribe (50% vs. 50%)

Of course, millennials are different in a number of ways—but even in those instances, the differences aren’t all that meaningful when it comes to how marketers should respond. For example, here are the five biggest differences that we could find from our research:

1. MILLENNIALS CHECK THEIR SPAM FOLDERS MORE FREQUENTLY AND RESCUE BRANDS THEY DON’T WANT THERE MORE FREQUENTLY. TWEET THIS →

Millennials seem to be more aware of the imperfections around spam filtering. Fifty-five percent of them say they “very frequently” or “often” check their spam folder, versus only 46% of older generations. And 54% say they “very frequently” or “often” move promotional emails from brands out of their spam folder or mark emails in their spam folder as “not spam,” versus only 43% of older generations.

Only 18% of millennials say they never check their spam folder and only 25% say they never make a brand’s emails as “not spam.” In both cases, that’s roughly in line with older consumers (17% and 24%).

Takeaway: While it’s comforting to know that many consumers, especially millennials, are checking their spam folders regularly and correcting the mistakes made by spam filters, it doesn’t change marketers’ need to try to maximize their deliverability. That means:

• Having solid permission practices in place across all your subscriber acquisition sources
• Avoiding triggering spam filters
• Setting up your email infrastructure properly, including authenticating your email with Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)
• Managing your inactive subscribers to keep engagement high

2. MILLENNIALS ARE MORE LIKELY TO TAKE ACTION BASED SOLELY ON AN EMAIL’S SUBJECT LINE AND OTHER ENVELOPE CONTENT. TWEET THIS →

When we busted subject line myths, our Myth #6 was: If an email isn’t opened, then it’s like you never sent it. Our latest research busts this myth into even small bits.

Not only do 39% of millennials say they’ve visited a brand’s store or website as a result of receiving—but not opening—an email from the brand, but 38% say they’ve made a purchase because of a received but unopened email. And older consumers aren’t very far behind, with 34% visiting a brand’s site and 32% making a purchase.

Takeaway: We suppose there’s a little extra incentive if your audience is largely millennials, but we recommend that all brands use a consistent and well-branded sender name, as well as detailed and actionable subject lines and preview text—as the brands do in the examples below. Avoid vague, intriguing, or overly clever envelope content that attract the curious openers rather than openers who are likely to convert. And we absolutely recommend steering clear of subject lines that could be interpreted as misleading.

3. MILLENNIALS ARE MORE LIKELY TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM EMAILS OVER A BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE. TWEET THIS →

Creating cohesive omnichannel experiences has been a marketing priority for years now, and that priority was born out of consumer behavior. While brands are often organized into silos, consumers just see the brand. They consider it a singular entity and expect one hand to know what the other hand is doing.

For email marketers, the downside is that failures in one part of the business can be taken out on the email program—and this appears to be particularly true for millennials. For instance, 51% of millennials say that they have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because they had a bad customer service experience with the brand. Only 39% of Gen Xers and above said that.

An interesting wrinkle to this is that millennials are slightly less likely to mark a brand’s emails as spam because of a bad experience, with only 43% saying they have versus 46% of those from older generations.

Takeaway: All brands should strive for stellar customer service, but clearly failures will occur. If you know of individual cases, consider temporarily suspending that subscriber from receiving promotional emails, depriving them of the opportunity to opt-out while their angry. And if a PR scandal, large product recall, or other negative event occurs, consider temporarily suspending promotional emails to all subscribers to avoid a spike in unsubscribes and spam complaints.

4. MILLENNIALS ARE MORE LIKELY TO TRIAGE THEIR MOBILE INBOX, SAVING CERTAIN EMAILS FOR LATER. TWEET THIS →

It has been thought that you have one shot with an email to engage the subscriber. If the email doesn’t look great on their mobile device, for instance, then they’re on to the next email and you’ve missed your shot.

But our survey indicates that consumers, especially millennials, are willing to save at least some emails for later when they get back to a desktop. Fifty-three percent of millennials say they “very frequently” or “often” save an email while on their smartphone to read later on another device, versus 44% for older consumers.

Despite that willingness to save emails for later, however, millennials are just as likely as older generations to unsubscribe because of mobile-unfriendly experiences. For example, 52% of millennials say they have unsubscribed from a brand’s promotional emails because their emails or website didn’t display or work well on smartphones (vs. 51% for older generations); and 41% have because the brand’s mobile app didn’t work well (vs. 40% for older generations).

Takeaway: Like everyone else, millennials have high standards for mobile-friendliness. So use a mobile-aware, responsive, or hybrid email design approach, and work with your web and mobile app counterparts to ensure that subscribers have good landing page experiences, too.

5. MILLENNIALS ARE LESS LIKELY TO FIND UNSUBSCRIBING FROM PROMOTIONAL EMAILS TO BE DIFFICULT. TWEET THIS →

Our unsubscribe process is competing against the easy-to-find, never-fail “report spam” button. So it has to be straightforward or you risk spam complaints, which hurt your sender reputation, unlike unsubscribes.

Half of millennials, along with half of those who are older, say they’ve marked a brand’s emails as spam because unsubscribing was difficult, which is pretty consistent across age groups. However, only 31% of millennials find it difficult to unsubscribe, whereas 41% of those in Gen X and beyond do, making the risk lower among millennial subscribers.

Takeaway: Regardless of your audience, we recommend that unsubscribe links be prominent in the footer and that you follow the two-click unsubscribe rule—that your opt-out process requires no more than one click in the email and one click on the landing page. However, if your subscriber base is composed of lots of millennials, then you should be especially unafraid to include opt-down or other options as alternatives to opting out, as cookie retailer Cheryl’s does.

Although there are some differences here in terms of how millennials behave, the risks that drive unsubscribes and spam complaints are fairly universal. That means that marketers shouldn’t really need to make any changes to accommodate millennials, which love email just as much as everyone else.

Of course, positively motivating millennials might involve very different messaging and strategies than you’d use with Gen Xers and others. But before you’re able to engage them, you have to avoid ticking them off.

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