LinkedIn & Our Loved One’s Legacies

LinkedIn is a long-standing social network that adds meaningful value to the development of careers, the workforce, and the global economy. In fact, LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with more than 645+ million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Their mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

When a LinkedIn user passes away, the social network offers the option to request the removal of a deceased member's profile. This results in the deletion of the profile. Unlike Facebook, currently there is no option to “memorialize” a LinkedIn user’s profile. Many of us spend a lifetime building a career and serving our communities, and it would be a wonderful change if we could honor our LinkedIn legacies.

Susie Sharp, a LinkedIn trainer, wrote a very thoughtful article about reporting the death of a LinkedIn member, and states that “I start feeling pangs of regret that no relative or connection cared enough for this poor person - or knew how - to report his or her death to LinkedIn.” The comments on Susie's article are generally gracious for the guidance provided, and it is clear that this topic has touched many of us.

To better understand Susie’s feeling, simply perform a search on LinkedIn for the word “deceased.” The results return over 45,000 profiles. Each profile represents the career and life of a colleague, and more importantly, a father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandfather, grandmother, niece, or nephew. Consequently, these loved one’s profiles remain vulnerable.

To provide peace of mind, Profile Peace is creating a Continuing Education (CE) program for funeral directors on caring for a decedent’s LinkedIn profile. Our goal is to honor the professional legacies of the deceased by sharing best practices for remembering profiles. To that end, we are building consensus to support a “legacy badge” on LinkedIn similar to their “public profile badge.”

Our goal is to compassionately inform the public that a user passed away, while still preserving their profile and respecting their professional contributions. Profiles labeled with a LinkedIn “legacy badge” will show the word “Remembering”, the account will be secured so no one can log in, and profile data will no longer appear in advertisements, work anniversary notifications, and birthday reminders.

As we continue our social media afterlife awareness campaign in 2019, we invite you to share stories about your LinkedIn experiences. Our mission at Profile Peace is to help social media accounts of the deceased rest in peace by providing purposeful profile memorialization and closure. Thank you for your ongoing support. We warmly welcome you and your family to join our growing community.

Sources

1) About LinkedIn
https://about.linkedin.com

2) How to Report the Death of a LinkedIn Member
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-report-death-linkedin-member-susie-sharp-

3) How to Create a LinkedIn Badge for Your Website
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-create-linkedin-badge-your-website-brynne-tillman

4) What will happen to my Facebook account if I pass away?
https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143/

5) Request removal of a deceased member's LinkedIn profile
​https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/ask/TS-RDMLP

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