I was inspired to write this post because the venue where David and I got married went bankrupt and closed earlier this year. Out of curiosity, I did a Facebook search to see what they did with the page, and it was gone completely. Obviously I was sad for personal reasons because it’s like the venue never even existed, but I realized this is a great topic to cover. What should you do with your social media pages if you go through a rebranding or are no longer in business?
Rebranding
If you are rebranding by changing your name, your color scheme, logo, website, etc. I don’t want you to lose all of the hard work you put in to your page previously. So do not delete your pages and start over. The only time I’d recommend deleting pages is if you have a numerous social media pages and you want to simplify.
Changing your name on all social sites is pretty easy to do. You might want to post something ahead of time letting your followers know that it will be changing so they aren’t confused when they see a page they don’t recognize in their feed. As for imagery and content? Just post the updates profile photo, cover photo, and don’t worry about the content. You should be posting frequently enough that the old content will get buried soon enough.
No longer in business
If you are no longer in business, you have a couple options.
#1 – Delete the pages. This is what the wedding venue did, which technically is “fine” but it’s not my first choice. When you delete a page, you literally delete and lose everything you once worked so hard on. If you decide you really do want the page gone for good, make sure to download the page first. That way you have a file saved of everything from your page before it disappears into the abyss.
#2 – Unpublish the pages. This feature is only available on Facebook, but you are able to actually unpublish a page so it disappears from the public but the page is still technically active. This is what I hope the wedding venue did, but it’s pretty unlikely because most people either don’t know this is an option or don’t think of it.
#3 – Keep the pages but update them. If you are going out of business for good, this is the option I would choose. Change the profile imagery with something that says you are no longer in business, but leave the page up. This way, when someone is searching for you, they get a definitive answer instead of searching, not finding you, getting confused, thinking they are going crazy, and eventually seeing that you closed your doors. Be honest with your audience, give them a proper farewell, and you’re good to go.
If you have a question relating to this topic that I didn’t answer, please send me a message on Facebook or Instagram and I’ll be sure to respond!