Some time ago, I helped my mom delete her Facebook account. It wasn’t too long after that she opened a new account. While I didn’t quite comprehend why she wanted her page deleted at the time – personally, I thought unpublishing her page would have been a better short-term solution – in hindsight I understand why she came back to the site following a short absence. This isn’t just limited to Facebook, either. Any social networking platform that you can think of, Twitter or otherwise, seems to follow a similar pattern of account deactivations and almost immediate reactivations.
What are some of the reasons why people forgo social media websites and follow up by returning shortly thereafter? Any online marketing firm can notice the aforementioned pattern as well and here are 5 reasons why said patterns are so prevalent.
5 Reasons People Ultimately Keep Their Social Pages
1. Saying “happy birthday” when you cannot otherwise
For example, if you are a parent of a college student who’s gone away to school, chances are that you cannot wish them a happy birthday in person. As unfortunate as this might be, this is why websites like Facebook and Twitter are so useful. All you have to do is log in and post a “happy birthday” message on his or her feed, letting them know that they are in your thoughts. For sentimental reasons, social media is returned to time and time again.
2. Putting up photos for safekeeping
Let’s be fair: not everything lasts forever. The SD card that you use in order to save photos on your camera might die out on you. The same can be said for the hard drive associated with your laptop. These are more technical issues than anything else, which is why something like social media is so helpful. Keep in mind that many people utilize Facebook, Twitter and the like to save photos and it’s unlikely that those pages will fade away anytime soon.
3. Staying in touch with those from school
The same college student mentioned earlier will stay in contact with fellow students and instructors alike. Fortunately, social media is a great way for this to be done. To illustrate this point, if an instructor states that he or she must cancel class in order to fulfill personal obligations, who’s to say that the message can’t be easily posted in a private group for the class? This doesn’t even begin to detail how social media can maintain friendships made in school over the course of time.
4. Keeping up-to-date with the news
It can be argued that news can be picked up from such sources as Google with little trouble. While this is undeniably true, I’d like to think that social media edges out for one reason: it’s easier for relevant stories to gain awareness. Those who you’re friends with are going to have similar interests to you, after all. What this means is that anything they post is, more likely than not, going to pique your interest.
5. Work-related endeavors may require them
Let’s say that you finally graduate from college, looking to make a name for yourself in the industry that interests you the most. Believe it or not, social media can come into effect in a few ways. Not only will your social pages determine, in the eyes of an employer, how reputable you are but it can serve as a digital resume of sorts. Nowhere is the latter more prevalent than on LinkedIn, so to say that it’s important to stay involved in social media would be an understatement.
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See also: 6 Strategies to Enhance Your Social Media Efforts
