I don’t like to delete a social media account and I really wanted Google+ to work. I loved the visual layout, the icons and its integration with rest of Google’s products, but it just wasn’t working for us. We tried posting YouTube clips, images and links, but nothing seemed to work. It was time for us to abandon Google+. This isn’t the first time I thought about deleting a social media account, but the evidence was mounting to that we needed to go in a different direction.
Deleting a social media account for you or your church can be a big deal. If you’ve spent time crafting content and doing research leaving a social network can make you feel like you’ve been wasting your time.
Hopefully before you pull the trigger you’ve done some thinking about what it would mean to your audience. You also should ask yourself if you’re suffering from burnout and what you really need is a digital sabbath. Either way, pulling the plug on a social media account needs to be thought through.
However, there are times when you need to close up shop and focus on what’s working. There isn’t clear cut criteria for when you should delete a social media account, but there are some valid reasons for you to consider it. So if you’re not sure what to do, here some reasons for when you should delete a social media account and even some tools to help you at the end of this post.
Three Reasons to Delete Your Social Media Account
- Not Enough Time – Most productive people will tell you that you can choose to do a lot things okay or you can choose to do few things really well. This applies to your church’s social media as well. While it may seem great to be the first church on a new social network, when you choose to be on that new network, you’re choosing not be somewhere else. This usually means you”ll spend less time on the networks that you’ve been using for a longer time. Take for example Facebook. Sure, Facebook may not be the flashiest social network right now, but it still has the largest amount of users and can give you the greatest reach if you use it properly.
Remember, you can only focus on a few social networks. If you find yourself spread too thin with your time, then you’re going to have either reduce your time on each social media network or delete the account. My suggestion? Delete the account. - Your People Aren’t There – There’s nothing more frustrating than spending time on a social media network only to have no one interact with your content. Now this lack of interaction could be one of two things. One, it could be that your content doesn’t invite interaction. Second, it could be that no one from our church is on that network. For us, we found that with Google+ no one from our church was on there. Yes, there were lots of people who had accounts on Google+, but no one was going on there and using the network.
Looking back, we could have avoided this headache if we had only surveyed our people to find our where they’re at. If we had surveyed our congregation then we would have known that a majority of our church is on Facebook and Instagram. - It’s Unstable – I love new social media networks. However, I’m also aware that new social media networks can be unstable. “Unstable” can mean two different things in this case. First, they can be unstable in their business plan which means that if their plan doesn’t work than they can be out of business (i.e. Friendster or Pownce). This means that you the user can be left high and dry with all your hard work going down with their business as well.
Second, they can be technologically unstable. Think of how many times Twitter used to the get the “fail whale” when they first started out. Yes, they pulled through but there are a lot that don’t. If you’re getting the sense that the social media network your on isn’t as stable as it should be, it’s okay to leave it and come back later when it’s ready for daily use.
Don’t Feel Defeated
It’s easy to feel defeated when you delete a social media account. I’ve had the same feeling. When I delete an account, I examine what I did wrong and where I need to improve. What I have learned is to list out the positive experiences I’ve had with the social media account. Can I replicate some of the success I had on my other social media accounts? Do I need to set a reminder to come back in year and try to start the social media account again when they have more users?
Take inventory of your church’s social media accounts. Are you getting back the results you need for the amount of time you’re putting into them? If not then it may time to delete that social media account. If you some help doing this, then check out AccountKiller or Just Delete Me. Click here to share your thoughts for when you think it’s time to delete a social media account.