BackupHeroes: A Forum for Backup and Disaster Recovery Pros

Asigra Inc. has launched BackupHeroes.com, a social networking forum for data backup and disaster recovery professionals. The move signals continued vendor investments in social media — a healthy trend — though catching and retaining VAR and MSP attention is tricky at this point. Here’s why.

BackupHeroes.com concedes that there are “thousands of technical support communities” but the company claims this new forum is the “first and only online forum where backup professionals can post, find and use both strategic and tactical content related to backup and storage.” Community Manager Samantha Morris appears to oversee the effort.

On the site’s homepage I was able to immediately find four very relevant topics for discussion in the field of data storage and security: Security and Compliance, Better Backup Management, Backup Virtualization and Data Recovery. Users can then post threads within a topic and read other’s responses. Theres’ also a section for users to begin their own, new conversations at the bottom of the home page. The site also includes RSS Feeds, profile-building capacity and private messaging.

No doubt, a range of vendors have worked hard to build online communities, social media destinations and forums. Kaspersky Lab runs the very popular Threatpost security news site, and just about every vendor we track has their own blog or media outlet. But with BackupHeroes, Asigra will need to maintain a balancing act… pulling VARs and MSPs into the conversation and educational dialog without pitching Asigra’s own solutions endlessly. Asigra asserts that BackupHeroes.com is not an Asigra community.

Meanwhile, there’s the other modern reality: VARs and MSPs already have their hands full with FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For yet another forum to catch on it needs to contain compelling information with a community manager who assists the dialog along. That’s where Community Manager Samantha Morris enters the picture. When vendor-launched forums succeed it’s usually because there’s a community manager dedicated to driving the dialog.

Additional insights from Joe Panettieri. Sign up for MSPmentor’s Weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow us via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com. Read our editorial disclosure here.