Manage Your Digital Legacy
A digital legacy consists of all of the photos, videos and posts on social media you’ve put out there. What happens to all that information about you after you die? Mandy Benoualid, Co-Founder and President of Keeper, presented “Meaningful Memorials: How to Create a Digital Legacy for a Loved One (or Yourself!)” as part of the 2021 Before I Die New Mexico Festival. She shares some great information about managing your online life after death.
Here’s a sobering statistic: there are an estimated 30 million deceased people on Facebook as of October 2021. About 20,000 people die on Facebook EVERY DAY – that’s about 7.3 million people dying on this one social media platform EVERY YEAR. Dead users on Facebook could outnumber the total number of living people on the planet in 50 years. And over on Twitter, 613,000 users die every year in the U.S. alone.
Mandy Benoualid commented, “This is a lot of information, this is a lot of people’s lives that are online. And this doesn’t include Google, iTunes, and YouTube. What really happens to everything that’s online after we’ve died?”
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How You Can Start Preparing for Your Digital Death
Most social media platforms have strict rules around shutting down social media accounts after the account holder dies. They can vary by company, with different options for the now-dead person’s account. Think of all the photos and memories that can be lost when the account is shut down.
- Facebook: has a memorialized account option, and the ability to name a legacy contact.
- Instagram: has a similar model, but much more limited.
- Twitter: offers account removal, no memorialization.
- TikTok: only offers account deletion.
- Pinterest: only offers account deletion.
Create an Online Memorial
Mandy said, “I encourage you all to start thinking about and building your legacy today. Organize your digital assets, protect them and share them. You’re only going to be able to share them in the future for when you die, and if you don’t organize and start protecting them now, then it’s not going to be so great for those you leave behind.”
Mandy Benoualid founded Keeper in 2013. It’s a social online memorial platform that hundreds of thousands of families are using to share their stories. She is also the editor of the consumer-focused death positive media site, TalkDeath.com. She regularly speaks at funeral and cemetery conferences.
Watch more videos from the Before I Die NM Festival here.
Festival Sponsors
Thank you to these companies and organizations that made the Before I Die NM Festival possible.
- A Good Goodbye – Gail Rubin puts the “fun” in funeral planning. AGoodGoodbye.com
- Beloved – providing custom personalized obituaries and eulogies. Beloved-Press.com
- Compassion & Choices – improving care, expanding options and empowering everyone to chart their end-of-life journey. www.CompassionandChoices.org
- Daniels Family Funerals & Cremations, Fairview Memorial Park, Gabaldon Mortuary, Sandia Memory Gardens and Vista Verde Memorial Park in Albuquerque.
- EstatePros LLC – offering professional dispersal of personal possessions due to a move, illness, or death. EstateProsNM.com
- Final Exit Network – educating about and defending the right to choose at end-of-life. FinalExitNetwork.org
- French Funerals & Cremations and Sunset Memorial Park in Albuquerque.
- GatheringUs – providing in-person and virtual memorial services and online memorial pages. GatheringUs.com
- Keeper – providing hybrid & virtual memorial services and keeping memories alive with online tributes to preserve, celebrate and share life legacies. MyKeeper.com
- Morris Hall PLLC – estate planning attorneys in New Mexico and Arizona. MorrisTrust.com
- Remembering A Life – your guide to honoring a life well lived, from planning a tribute to mourning a loved one. RememberingALife.com
- Retirement Extender® – investment management services with a personalized strategy recommendation based on your needs and objectives. RetirementExtender.com
A portion of the sponsorship proceeds and ticket sales from the Before I Die NM Festival were donated to 501(c)(3) charitable partner, Historic Fairview Cemetery, established in Albuquerque in 1881. The cemetery is the final resting place of 12,000 individuals, with remarkable stories reflecting the history of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the United States of America. The website is www.HistoricFairviewCemeteryABQ.org.