One of the bravest people I’ve known is Richard, who sold on eBay for longer than I care to remember and recently died of cancer. You can read about him in his own words on his memorialised Facebook profile.
Richard knew the end was near and had time to prepare, to wind down his eBay business, to decide what would happen to his Facebook page and generally to put his affairs in order. It’s something we all need to think about, but are you prepared, not just for if you pass away, but also if you had to drop everything in an emergency?
Of course you don’t need to worry about your social profiles in an emergency, in fact you may well be making more use of them than ever, but what do you do with eBay, Amazon, your website and other sites you trade on. Just a couple of days of missed shipments can have a devastating effect on your business.
If you have employees, your absence hopefully they can take care of your business for you. If you’re a sole trader it’s not so easy and unrealistic to expect your mum/dad/son/best friend/next door neighbour to know how to put your business on hold or close it down gracefully.
It’s well worth considering sharing your login details with a trusted friend who runs their own marketplace business along with instructions on what to do. This could be anything from putting your holiday settings on to bombing all your listings.
Sadly the time will come for all of us to pass on and whilst it’s never something we want to dwell on, it’s worth putting plans in place. Facebook at least make thing easy with their legacy settings.
Facebook Legacy Settings
Facebook give you the choice of nominating a legacy contact to manage your Facebook profile after it’s been memorialised, or of choosing to have your account entirely deleted once they’re notified of your death.
Legacy Contact
Your Facebook legacy contact will be able to do things like pin a post on your Timeline, respond to new friend requests and update your profile picture
Account Deletion
Once someone lets Facebook know that you’ve passed away, all of your info, photos and posts will be permanently removed from Facebook and no one will be able to see your Profile again.
Choose your Facebook Legacy Settings
To choose the option you’d like to happen, navigate to Facebook Settings, click Security and then Legacy Contact and you’ll be able to nominate a contact or decide to have your account deleted when the time comes.
