Digital Demise: What Happens To Your Social Media Profiles When You Die?

During the month of October, marketers, blog writers, and advertisers entrench their work with all that is goolish in the name of Halloween fun.  Despite marketing’s best autumn efforts though, the digital world can sometimes be scary enough all on its own.  Social media networks have integrated themselves so seamlessly into the lives of millions of Americans that their online reputations become part of their identity: a digital thumbprint if you will.  Because users expend so much time and effort on the sites, they can become intensely personal.  That’s why it’s a little upsetting to think about what happens to those personal social media profiles when their “users” pass away.  The social Mecca Facebook addressed this issue directly last October; after its new friend-suggestion application was criticized for suggesting “friends” to individuals only to find that the suggested friends were actually deceased.

In a Time Magazine article from October 29th, 2009 Facebook’s head of security, Max Kelley, enlightened his blog’s readers by explaining Facebook’s memorializing policy.  According to the company’s protocol, relatives/ friends of deceased individuals need only contact the group with proof of the user’s death (i.e.- obituary, death certificate, etc.), and Facebook will promptly list the profile as a memorial or delete it all together (depending on the family’s wishes.)

If a Facebook profile is memorialized, the url linked to the specific page will no longer appear in search engine results; nor will any future attempts to input live updates (i.e.- “status” and “like” applications) be authorized.  The company publicized this policy heavily last year as a result of their expanded real-time applications and the added threat digital identity theft posed to the expanded menu of services.

With so many small businesses (namely those in medical practice, home improvement, construction, and luxury services industries) using Facebook and Twitter for promotional and educational purposes, McCauley Marketing Services wonders what the networks next move will be to protect business that didn’t survive the economic crunch over the last year.  Will businesses and fan pages become memorialized?  Many small businesses were merely put on hold for a short time while the economy recovers- is their a way to temporarily freeze their social media identities?

Continue reading McCauley Marketing Services blog as we unravel the ever-changing mystery of social media and digital marketing.