No matter if you want to stay on top of all your social media comms, have a record of your business’s activity for compliance, or keep an eye on your competitors, you’ll need to know how to archive your social media posts.
Fortunately, we’ve been there, done that, and we’re ready to show you how to make archiving a piece of cake!
First - Can You Archive Posts with the Social Media Platform?
Yes, you can! One way you can archive your posts is to download everything from your social media. And we'll show you how to do it on the most popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
How to Archive Facebook
Let's start with Facebook – or as they call it now, “Meta” (if you're into that). Here's how to archive your Facebook posts in just a few easy steps:
- Click on the account button in the top right corner of Facebook.
- Select Settings & Privacy and then click on Settings.
- In the left column, click on Privacy and then select Your Facebook Information.
- Click on View next to Download Profile Information.
- Choose the categories of data you want to include or exclude in your request by clicking the boxes on the right side of the screen.
- Customize your request by selecting the format, quality, and date range of the information you want to download.
- Click Request Download to confirm your request.
And voila! Now you just need to wait some time, and then everything you’ve posted on Facebook will be available for download.
How to Archive Instagram
Instagram kind of works the same as Facebook. Here’s what you need to do:
- Go to your profile page and tap the hamburger icon– the three bars.
- Tap Settings and then Security.
- Under Data and History, tap Download Data.
- Enter an email address and tap Request Download.
- Enter your password and wait for Instagram to gather your data. They should have it ready within a day or two.
- Check your email and click Download Information. Note: you have to download it within 4 days of receiving the email, so keep an eye on your inbox.
There you have it– Instagram posts and messages archived.
How to Archive Twitter
Twitter works similarly to the Meta apps.
- Click on the “more” three dots icon in the Twitter navigation bar, then select Your Account from the menu.
- Click Download an archive of your data.
- Enter your password and click Confirm.
- Verify your identity by entering the code sent to your email address or phone number on file.
- Click the Request Data button.
- When your download is ready, click the Download Data button under the Download data section.
- Download a .zip file of your Twitter archive by clicking the Download button in the email you receive.
And boom, you’ve got your tweets archived!
How to Archive LinkedIn
OK, now let’s look at LinkedIn. Again, it pretty much works like the others.
- First, click on your profile icon located at the top of your LinkedIn homepage. It's the one with a picture of a silhouette in a circle or your profile picture.
- Next, from the dropdown menu, select Settings & Privacy toward the bottom.
- On the left rail, you'll see Data Privacy. Click on that.
- Under the How LinkedIn uses your data section, look for the option Get a copy of your data and click it.
- You'll be prompted to select the data you want to include in your archive, so choose wisely.
- Once you've made your selection, click on the Request archive button, and LinkedIn will start creating your archive. You will be notified via email when it's ready for download.
Now your LinkedIn is archived!
Keep in mind, though, that these are just four examples, and different platforms will provide different options for archiving your posts.
Use Social Media Archiving Tools
Another option to archive your social media posts is to use a dedicated social media archiving tool. These tools are specifically designed to capture and archive tools from social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and many others, so you don’t have to check if your platform supports archiving.
A few of the tools we’ve loved using to archive social media posts include:
ArchiveSocial
ArchiveSocial is a cloud-based platform that allows you to capture and archive social media posts instantly. It's specifically designed for public record requests and other legalities, but it can be used for any purpose. It captures every post, picture, mentions, and comments across multiple platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
ArchiveSocial's AI-powered platform automatically captures, stores, and indexes social media data, making it easy to search and retrieve when needed. However, it is a bit pricey, starting at $349/month.
Smarsh
Smarsh is another cloud-based platform that you can use to archive social media posts. In addition to social media platforms, it also lets you archive posts from messaging apps like Whatsapp and Telegram.
It's also compatible with video conferencing tools like Zoom, customer relationship management software like Salesforce, and more. Smarsh's advanced indexing and search capabilities allow you to quickly and easily find the information you need.
PageFreezer
PageFreezer is an all-in-one tool that offers a suite of communication capture tools, including social media archiving. It supports all the major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and even TikTok and YouTube.
It also works with communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. With PageFreezer, you can capture and archive all your social media activity in one central location, making it easy to find and retrieve data.
Intradyn
Intradyn is a comprehensive tool that not only lets you archive social media posts but also text messages, emails, and more. It captures and indexes all your communication channels in real-time, allowing you to search through multiple social media channels from one location.
Intradyn's advanced features let you pull everything from mentions, posts, pictures, videos, and more. Its intuitive interface makes it easy to use, even for those without technical expertise.
MirrorWeb
MirrorWeb is another great option for archiving your social media content. It works with all major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also lets you capture text messages as well as messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, and Telegram.
Additionally, it archives emails, whether they're internal or using popular platforms like Gmail or Outlook. This tool is handy if you need to comply with regulatory requirements or maintain a complete historical record of your digital communications.
While these tools can help you archive your social media posts, there’s one major problem. They’re typically aimed at organizations that use social media archiving for legal and regulatory purposes. As such, they’re pretty expensive and might have features that you don’t need to be paying for.
A Low-Cost Option for Archiving Your Social Media Tools: Take Screenshots
Finally, another option to archive your social media posts is to use screenshots. Now, we don’t mean doing it manually with your Mac or PC applications. (You’d need to open every post or scroll down on your feed in increments to take screenshots.)
No - what we mean is using ScreenshotAPI.
ScreenshotAPI specializes in taking website screenshots quickly, easily, and programmatically.
You can take full-page screenshots, screenshots at a specific time every day, and you can even extract the text from screenshots. As a bonus, you can also save your screenshots in the format you prefer, from PDFs to JPGs and PNGs.
Simply put, ScreenshotAPI is the tool you need to archive your social media posts. To test it out for yourself, why not get started for free today?