We received an email at our support desk this morning that prompted me to write this blog. In a nutshell, one of our users had written to us asking if we were able to restore her Facebook and Twitter accounts from her SocialSafe backups. Unfortunately, this simply isn’t possible using ANY social media backup service. This is all down to the respective APIs of Facebook and Twitter.
Having a backup of your social media content simply does not mean that you now have the option of a one-click restore if anything goes wrong. However, depending on how that data is stored, you may be able to rebuild some parts of a social profile with minimal fuss.
At SocialSafe we are proud to say that we are the only mainstream social media backup service supporting Facebook and Twitter that actually gives you control over your content. Every post, tweet, mention, follower, update, photo (with tags, likes and comments) etc., made available by the APIs, is saved into your journal on your own PC or Mac.
With SocialSafe all of your backed up data is available to view, search or export and each of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers/following are linked to their profile on the respective social networks. From there you can click on the link and then add them as a Facebook friend or start following them on Twitter again.
So while unfortunately it just isn’t possible to perform a one-click restore on a hacked or deleted profile or account at this stage, with SocialSafe you are still able to view your content and select which friendships or acquaintances you’d like to re-establish.
If you are concerned about the idea of losing your social media content, then you can start your own SocialSafe journal today. And given that Twitter’s API can only store your last 3,200 tweets, it’s worth backing these up now before you pass that threshold. To start using SocialSafe visit our site and download the free trial.