Find every social account the business ever opened, then decide for each whether to revive it with a named owner, hand it over or close it, and remove the website icons for anything not kept.

The bird in the footer

A visitor clicks the Twitter icon at the bottom of your home page. The last tweet wishes everyone a happy holiday season, in December 2014.

The visitor does not conclude that the business is busy with other things. They wonder whether it is still open, and whether anyone looks after the website either.

Your own site sent them there. That is what makes a dormant account linked from the website worse than one nobody can find.

What a quiet account suggests

An account that stopped mid-conversation looks like a business that stopped. Visitors cannot tell that you simply moved your attention to Facebook.

Social profiles also tend to appear on the first page of results when someone searches your business name, so the dormant account may be among the first things a stranger sees.

And a mention or message left unanswered on an old account looks like a customer being ignored, even if nobody knew it was there.

The accounts businesses forget

The fifth causes the most confusion. Customers leave reviews and check in on whichever page they find first, and messages sent to the forgotten one go unread.

Find every account

Search for the business name on each network, and check the website's header, footer and contact page for icons.

Search old email for welcome messages from each service, which show when accounts were opened and which address they used. Ask former staff, politely, what they set up.

For each account, write down the login email, who knows the password, the date of the last post, and whether the website links to it.

Revive, hand over or close

Revive an account if customers use that network and someone in the business will post on a routine they can keep. Both conditions, not one.

Hand it over if it belongs with someone else: a manager who will run it, or the business itself when it sits in a former employee's personal login.

Close it if nobody will post. Or keep the name: update the profile to say where the business is active now, pin a post saying the same, and remove the link from your website.

Deactivating a Twitter account deletes it after thirty days, and the name can then be taken by someone else.

A worked example

A curling club opened a Twitter account in 2013. A volunteer posted draw results and bonspiel news for one season, then moved away, and the last tweet dates from early 2014.

The club's website still showed a Twitter bird in its header and, on the home page, an embedded feed that opened with that 2014 tweet.

There were Google+ and Pinterest icons too, for accounts with almost nothing on them.

Nobody on the board knew the feed was still on the home page until a new member asked whether the club was still running.

With the ice out for the season this month, the board went through every account. The volunteer, reached by email, reset the Twitter password and handed it over.

The login now uses the club's own address. The draw master will post results each week of the season from October, and the profile says so.

The embedded feed came off the home page, replaced by a short news item written on the site. The Google+ and Pinterest icons were removed.

Take old feeds off the home page

An icon in the footer is easy to miss. An embedded feed on the home page is not, and when it shows posts from three years ago it dates the whole site.

Keep a feed only if the account behind it posts more often than the site changes. Otherwise replace it with news written on the site itself.

Check email signatures, printed cards and the Google listing for links to accounts you are closing as well.

A revived account, kept small

A revived account needs a routine the business can keep in its busiest month, not its quietest.

One post a week is plenty for most: changes to hours, closures, events, results, and anything customers would otherwise phone to ask about.

Reply to mentions within a day, since a question left hanging on a public account is seen by everyone who visits.

Pin a current post to the top of the profile, and replace it when it goes out of date.

Before closing an account

Take a copy first. Twitter lets the account holder request an archive of every tweet, and most other networks offer something similar in their settings.

Then post once more, saying where the business can be found now, and leave that post pinned for a few weeks before deactivating. Anyone still checking will find a pointer rather than silence.

Logins that belong to the business

Most dormant accounts were opened with somebody's personal email address, which is why nobody can get back in.

Recovering an account usually depends on access to the email or phone number it was registered with. If those are gone, recovery can take weeks or fail entirely.

Every account the business keeps should use an address the business controls, with the password stored where more than one person can find it. Then the next handover takes minutes rather than weeks.

The counter-case

A dormant account nobody links to, which rarely appears in searches, does little harm, and closing it can wait.

Some businesses legitimately post only in season. A profile that says when posting resumes reads as planned rather than abandoned.

But any account the website points to should be either active or closed, with its icon removed.

Account by account

  1. Search your business name on every network.
  2. List each account with its login email.
  3. Move logins to a business email address.
  4. Decide for each: revive, hand over or close.
  5. Remove icons for accounts you are closing.
  6. Take dated feeds off the home page.
  7. Name one person for each account you keep.

Step three keeps this from happening a second time. Accounts tied to a personal address leave with the person, and nobody notices until the next time someone needs to log in.

The accounts you keep need answering too, starting with star ratings on your Facebook page.

Frequently asked questions

Why does a dormant account hurt the business?

A last post from years ago leaves visitors wondering whether the business has closed, especially when the business's own website sent them to it.

How do I find old social accounts?

Search the business name on each network, check the website for icons, search old email for welcome messages, and ask former staff what they set up.

When should I revive an account?

When customers use that network and someone in the business will post on a routine they can keep. Both conditions need to hold.

What happens when I close a Twitter account?

Deactivating it deletes it after thirty days, and the name can then be claimed by someone else. Updating the profile and keeping the name is an alternative.

Should I keep an embedded feed on my site?

Only if the account posts more often than the site changes. A feed showing posts from years ago makes the whole site look out of date.

Which email should social accounts use?

An address the business controls, not a personal one. Recovery depends on access to that email or phone, and personal addresses leave with the person.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Icons linking to accounts gone quiet?

Send us your website address. We will list every social link on it and where each one leads.

Start a Conversation