Social media public records

Which social media public records to capture

Social media content (e.g. posts, blogs, comments, likes, tweets, retweets) is a public record and should be managed according to its value and the same rules as all other public records.

Most social media content will have a transitory or short-term value.

Some social media content will have a medium to long-term value – usually information that is unique, or requires follow up by the public authority or results from service delivery or consultation.

See the following guide to whether social media needs to be captured or not.

Capturing social media

Which Yammer public records to capture

Yammer posts, messages, attachments and polls need to be captured and managed according to their value and the same rules as all other public records.

Transitory and short term public records do not need to be captured unless they document a business decision or transaction.

You need to capture medium and long-term value content. Members of groups creating content with medium or long-term value should work with their group administrators and information management staff to decide what to capture, which application public records should be captured in, who should capture them and how.

The following table is a guide to whether Yammer content needs to be captured or not.

Capturing Yammer content

If different public authorities contribute to the same Yammer group, one public authority should be given the lead role in capturing public records. This may be the public authority with overall responsibility for the work or the public authority with the most robust recordkeeping system.

When to capture content

Content can be captured before or after it is published.

• Before–do this in the best format for your public authority (e.g. as part of approval process, spreadsheet of tweets, word version of blog content).
• After–this will depend on the social media platform and how you want to manage the public records.

Note: You may need to capture afterwards if you need or want to preserve comments and other responses.

Ways of capturing content

The following lists the options for capturing content directly from a social media platform after it's been published, and the pros and cons of each.

Paid services

(e.g. Hearsay, Socialware, Erado, HootSuite, RegEd, Backupify, ArchiveSocial, SocialSafe, Brolly and others)

Pros

• No technical knowledge required
• Low effort
• Capture content from different platforms simultaneously and aggregate it
• Analytics tools usually built in

Cons

• Costs money
• Some services put the content in a cloud account or local database rather than outputting it as a file you can save into your internal recordkeeping system
• Some services are designed to restore lost content rather than to manage it for access and reuse
• Poor navigation in services not designed for preservation

Built-in export tools

(e.g. Twitter, Wordpress)

Pros

• Low cost
• Low effort
• No technical knowledge required
• Exported content is easily searchable
• Preserves metadata

Cons

• May not be able to pick and choose content for export
• Doesn't preserve look and feel (exports are usually in .xml format)
• May not capture attachments

Printscreen

Pros

• Low cost
• No technical knowledge required
• Easy to do–longer threads are condensed or shortened
• Look and feel preserved

Cons

• Can be time-consuming if you want to capture a lot of content
• Exported content not easily searchable
• Doesn't preserve metadata
• Doesn't capture attachments

Browser 'save as' or 'save page as'

Pros

• Low cost
• No technical knowledge required
• Easy to do–longer threads are condensed or shortened
• Exported content easily searchable
• Preserves look and feel

Cons

• Web archive files may render differently in different browsers
• Doesn't preserve metadata
• Doesn't capture attachments

Application programming interfaces (APIs), where accessible

(e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Yammer*)

Pros

• Low cost
• Exported content is easily searchable
• Preserves metadata
• Can pick and choose content

Cons

• The procedures, query formats and quirks of each of the APIs can be daunting
• Not easy to learn
• Different APIs have different functionality
• Doesn't preserve look and feel (exports are usually in .xml format)
• Doesn't capture attachments

See the guides on using the Facebook (PDF, 267.6 KB) , Flickr (PDF, 703 KB), Twitter (PDF, 297 KB), YouTube (PDF, 725 KB) and Yammer (PDF, 322 KB) API.

How long to keep them

Social media and Yammer public records are subject to the same disposal rules as other digital public records.

Public records should be sentenced based on the purpose of the post or communication and the function and activity they relate to. This will depend on the purpose of the post or communication.

The General Retention and Disposal Schedule has record classes covering marketing, media relations and routine communications that can be used for general posts and communications.

Any posts or communications that relate to a specific business activity (e.g. consultation, complaints) will need to be sentenced using the same activity or record class that other public records documenting that activity would be sentenced under. For example, social media posts about a consultation would be sentenced with all other public records relating to that consultation.

Public records will need to be managed, stored appropriately and kept for their full minimum retention period.

Resources

• Guide for using the Facebook API (PDF, 268 KB)
• Guide for using the Flickr API (PDF, 703 KB)
• Guide for using the Twitter API (PDF, 297 KB)
• Guide for using the YouTube API (PDF, 725 KB)
• Guide for using the Yammer API (PDF, 322 KB)