To reiterate the headline: Don’t rely on social media to save your photo memories! That’s a big N-O in my book: Relying on Facebook or Instagram to safeguard your precious images and memories is shortsighted.

I am active on various social media platforms, including those I mention; they are great for connecting, venting, passing the time on a commute. They are wonderful platforms for sharing pictures of your family’s favorite moments (I do love such everyday history!) and capturing tidbits we might otherwise forget (from that thing you couldn’t believe your 3yo just uttered to the quote posted near the Starbucks register).

But think about this:  

• Facebook was never intended as a place to store your photos. A photo shared on your timeline is a vehicle for social interaction; it is not a receptacle for keeping those photos.

• Images uploaded to Facebook are converted to a lower resolution (read: lower quality) immediately. So if you want to retrieve that image from the platform later, it will be optimized for web viewing—definitely not for printing.

• Any social media platform may change its terms of service at any moment, and none of them can guarantee the longevity of your data. It’s your responsibility to back up your original digital images, whether on an external hard drive or in the cloud.

• Do you enjoy endless scrolling to find the picture you want? Despite hashtags on Instagram and the ability to make albums on Facebook, the actual search and sort functionality of these platforms is slim to none. The longer you have been posting pictures, the more challenging it becomes to find them on these sites.

And then there’s this:

Does what you post to Facebook accurately reflect your life the way you want to recall it?

There is a handful of companies that will generate an annual memory book straight from your Facebook feed. A nice idea in theory, but I am willing to bet some of the things you post are a bit more throwaway than legacy material. If I were to have a book such as this made, amidst the photo shares from my son’s first day of school and holidays would appear such non sequiturs as a photo of the kale smoothie I ate for breakfast on January 23; a picture of the sign that made me smile at a professional conference (“Toilet out of order; please use the floor below”); political articles galore (brave shares during these politically divisive times!) and myriad lip-synch battles and carpool karaoke videos. If Facebook were to tell my life story, I’d be just a tad embarrassed.

If your Instagram feed is awesome, preserve it.

The best camera is the one that’s within reach. And so it is that so many everyday, often compelling, moments are captured and shared on Instagram. For some, the phone has become the family camera.

If that’s you, consider an annual Instagram book, an offbeat way to memorialize the shots you love. We can create a modern square heirloom book with glossy lay-flat pages that give life to your photographs in fun and engaging ways. Hashtags become bold graphic elements, user comments (especially from friends and family) may add humor or context. The final result is a whimsical, contemporary book that documents your life in a fun yet precious way.

Whatever you do, don’t let any of your social media platforms become your primary storage place, whether by accident or default. Your memories matter too much to lose them to some virtual void.

#MemoriesMatter #InstagramBook #Facebook #SocialMedia #FamilyMemories #Legacy

*This post was updated for timeliness on March 25, 2021.