Venice, CA – Performer Brandi Love has over 450K followers on Twitter, an objectively substantial social media following – and not just “for porn.”

On Jan. 9, 2018, Love’s Twitter account was hacked. The hacker(s) deleted followers and created false posts. Though Love’s account is now back in her hands, this situation serves as a useful reminder, both for the performer herself and the industry at large — back up your data.

In addition to the psychological stress that may stem from having personal information accessed by an unauthorized third-party, “From a business standpoint, [a Twitter hack] is equally damaging,” Love said.

Social media overall is a very mixed bag. Twitter is often the primary way public personalities and brands manage contacts and correspondence. Given many social media platforms’ fickle and uneven use policies regarding adult entertainment (and enforcement of said policies), this may sound a bit risky. But with an average of 330 million monthly active users as of the third quarter of 2017, not being on Twitter may actually be riskier.

“I have often written about my affinity for Twitter and the tremendous business opportunities that have come to life because of my interactions there. Trapped within my [Twitter account’s DMs] were numerous contracts, interviews, business opportunities and business contact information.”

Love estimated that the hack interrupted “at least $20,000 worth of business in January/February, eliminated 50% of my Social Media Marketing (SMM) Plan and consumed over 40 man hours and counting.”

Hacking aside, there are ways to back up tweets and Twitter DMs. For instance, TechnoBuzz recently reported on twDocs. After first accessing your Twitter archive, you can use the twDocs online tool to backup your tweets as PDF, DOC, XML, CSV, TXT, XLS or HTML files. You are also able to export direct messages, all this without even having to register with the service.

Love’s recent experience should be a reminder to us all – back that shit up before it crashes, you get hacked or Twitter decides it hates porn as much as Instagram does.