You never know what could happen to Facebook, Twitter or your blog. By backing up your accounts on a fairly regular basis you are less likely to lose any important info that keeps your business running.

There are tons of quick and easy ways to back up your social media data.

Facebook: Facebook recently allowed all users the ability to download all of their content – the info on their wall, photos, videos etc. This is how you do it:

• Go to Facebook and log in
• Go to Account Settings
• Click on “Download Your Information” and allow Facebook to download your info
• Wait for an e-mail that will let you know your info is ready
• Go through the security test that allows you to download your info onto your desktop
• Once it’s downloaded, double click it to unzip. From there you can open it and view all your information.

Twitter: There are many ways to back up your tweets. Even the Library of Congress is categorizing and storing tweets. So how can you store yours?

• TweetStreamApp.com:  This site has a free version which allows you to sync up to 3 Twitter accounts and provides detailed analytics, or you upgrade to the paid version which allows an unlimited amount of accounts for only $5 a year! The only downside is I found it takes quite a while to sync your data, but the site is really easy to navigate
• TweetBackup.com:  This site is free and super easy to use. No bells and whistles but it is super easy to navigate and it's nice being able to sync and save specific hashtags.

Your Blog:

• WordPress Blog: If you have a WordPress blog, download the plugin WP-DB Manager, this plugin gives you the option to optimize, backup and restore your entire database. If you want to just backup specific parts of your WordPress blog, in your Dashboard, click ‘Tools,’ then click ‘Export’ and you can then choose which posts you’d like to backup
• Non WordPress Blog: If you don’t have a WordPress blog you can use BlogBackupr.com. This service works for all other blog formats, provides a daily backup, runs over the internet, and there is no need to install anything!

So now that you have the tools, I highly recommend before the month is over to go backup your data.

I'd love your comments or feedback on backing up all your Social data. Leave me a comment below.

Most of the updates plug security holes that could allow malevolent internet users to inject malicious code into the users’ computers. As these holes are usually in features not switched on by default, Microsoft usually labels them as Important (the most critical updates are labeled Critical).

It’s a long list of affected software that includes: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 3, Office 2003 Service Pack 3, Office 2007 Service Pack 2, Office 2010, Office 2004 for Mac and 2008 for Mac, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, SharePoint Server 2007, Groove Server 2010, and Office Web Apps.

These patches are considered important as we head into the last quarter of the year, a time when many businesses have a heavy volume of online shopping. This period sees many financial and retail companies going into lockdown mode where they don’t update their systems.

Microsoft will release the 16 updates at approximately 1 p.m. ET on Oct. 12.  I think I'll take that afternoon off and turn off my phones.

Ed