Archiving Social Media? The White House Says YES!

By Beth J. Bates, New Media Special Correspondent

The White House is hiring a Social Media Archivist. Not because they want to keep all of your Twitter conversations or save incriminating Facebook photos. The 1978 Presidential Records Act (PRA) changed the legal ownership of official records generated from the Executive Office of the President from private to public and mandated that these records be filed with the National Archives and Records Administration. The act came about as a result of Watergate and has been a huge yet manageable regulation to uphold…until now. Enter social media.

The process of archiving online conversations via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. has proven to be a challenge. And President Obama has been quick to embrace Gov 2.0 as a communications tool. So the White House is searching for a firm to create a method to ensure that archived social streams are efficient and available for future use.

Although we're always warned that online content will be there "forever," it's actually very easy for data to disappear when blogs shut down or hosts go out of business. Archiving that data for the future is an important part of the PRA and I think it will be interesting to see what the new Social Media Archivist produces.

How do you archive your own streams? How important is it to you?

Beth J. Bates consults with Hinge on social media tool selection and strategy and helps its clients find effective ways to leverage these new mediums to meet business goals.