Social Media meets Mortality: How do you handle a deceased person’s online presence?

Written by: Leslie Fishlock // October 26th, 2009 // News, Social Media

I had been thinking about this for a long time, especially as people pass away that you know intimately or in a business setting.

What is the appropriate way to handle a deceased person’s online presence on Social Media?

Recently, a few people I know have passed on and yet everyone once in a while, their faces appear when I login in to some of my online accounts as people I should “follow”, “friend” or “Connect” with. Unfortunately, I already know they are no longer alive so I started thing what is the appropriate way to go about wither advising the family, business or even how does LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or any other sustem handle this.

Today I was very happy to see that Facebook broached this situation a bit with this this post on their blog by Max Kelly entitled “Memories of Friends Departed Endure on Facebook“. Max and the Facebook team were hit by tragedy in their own ranks as one of their colleagues passed on. And because it was something personal felt by them at Facebook, they even started wondering the same thing I did.

What Facebook is doing is truly gracious to make things easier for the family and friends of a loved one so that they can either have the profile taken down or to memorialize the person. If the person is memorialized, then they will no longer appear in the suggestions area. What was a very awkward situation is now being immortalized with a very tasteful way to remember the person on Facebook.

Facebook asks that family and friends first start by filling out the Deceased Form to notify them of the death. At this point, your loved one can still be alive on social media, even if their carbon life form is no longer with us. Social media lives on and so will their spirit and presence.

Kudos to Facebook for dealing with this in a classy way.

I am sure other networks have their systems and I will add them as I find them. I would hope in the future they would post something about this as well on their blog so people can find it more easily.

In the interim, if I do see someone online who is passed, I do find a way to let their colleagues, friends and family now if they are not very familiar with using social media. You can, in a very professional way, advise their close friends and relatives that perhaps there could be business repercussions such as leads, emails unanswered, and other loose ends.

I recently did that and the business colleague of the deceased man was very thankful that I made them aware of this.

If you saw someone online that was no longer with us, what would you do about it? Nothing or would you contact the family and friends if you knew them? Would you email the social media networks themselves?

And if you are a social media network, what are you doing to proactively to address this?

Please let us know as we embark on something no one wants to talk about, but we need a plan for in our social online world.