When it comes to social media networks, we have all been hit with SNOS—Shiny New Object Syndrome. We hop on the flavor-of-the-month social bandwagon without really evaluating whether or not they are worth our time and effort—sometimes we just can’t help but to dive in headfirst without checking if it's clear. Conversely, sometimes our target market makes natural migrations to new social networks because they are a part of the social vanguard. And as small business marketers, we need to be where our audience is.

The purpose of creating social media accounts is to be engaged with your audience -- a.k.a. potential customers -- but what happens when you land in a place where you see no results paying off from your efforts?

We’ve put together 5 tips for making a graceful exit from graveyard social accounts:

So you opened a social networking account with the intent to invest in building a loyal following, only to realize that having meaningful social relationships online is a lot like having relationships IRL (in real life) read: they require work to be successful. That means time, interest, and energy—continuously—including the upkeep of your posts. There is nothing worse than a potential customer finding your social network profile only to discover the last post was made well over a year ago.

Now you need to make a graceful social exit from that lackluster social networking site you joined. What do you do?

 

Do periodic reviews to evaluate the effectiveness of your social channels.

If you have been actively engaged for a while and you haven’t seen any return on your investment of time, you have two options: 1) invest more time in uncovering different strategies until you find something that sticks or 2) move on to a more appropriate social space that resonates better with your audience.

 

Thank them for their participation.

Whether you’re deleting your account or just leaving a bit of forwarding information, it’s still good to thank everyone who participated in discussions, sharing, or viewing of any of your posts. This shows that you appreciate the time and effort they put into you and your presence.

 

Let them know you’re leaving, and let them know why.

Announce on the social network that you’ll be exiting, that way any faithful friends or followers who would have wanted to engage with you will know why you’re suddenly silent. Be honest and sincere. At the end of the day, it’s supposed to be like communicating with friends, and friends understand when you have to make changes. Ideally, most of your friends and followers will be readily available to interact with you on other networks, but in the event that they’re not, they can always send you an email, right?

 

Leave a forwarding address or social channel.

Tell them how to find you. Let them know where you’ll be moving to, and how they can interact and engage with you in the next social space. You can always get creative with this and have an online going away party to see if anyone will even miss you. If not, no big deal. If so, it’s a fun opportunity to engage with your audience.

 

Set a firm date for exiting the account, and stick to it.

Put up a goodbye post, or leave a link to the next place. Take whatever strategy that feels right for you. We’ve landed on social pages where the last post states something like, “This page is no longer active, but if you want to get social, you can find us on…” with links to their other social accounts. Leave your post up for a sufficient amount of time and then remember to download any data you may need and actually go in at some point to close down the account so that you don’t miss any possible connections in the future.