Talking About A Death On Social Media

Social media may be the first place you go to announce that you are moving to a new house. It’s where you announced getting that new job. You were excited to let friends know you were expecting or that a new niece joined your family. It might feel automatic to want to spread news about the death in the family there as well. The professionals at funeral homes are there to help you with this issue and anything else you are grappling with during the grief process. Here are a few things you might want to do as you approach this topic and your social media account.

Talk To Your Family

Before you talk about losing a family member on social media, you are going to want to make sure the news has spread to other family members who deserve to hear from someone close to them. If you are the second or third person in line to hear the news for example, you don’t want to jump on social media and announce things only to let family know what happened before they get a call from the next of kin. It can be very hurtful to some people to hear news of this nature online instead of from someone personally. Let some time pass and talk to your family about the online announcement before you jump into things yourself.

Speak With Care

It’s so easy to get on your phone or computer, bang out a post, and hit send. But you aren’t going to want anything to be misconstrued with this post. Instead, you will want to speak with great care and make sure everything you say is family-approved and sets your loved one in a positive, loving, honorable light. You can write something up and perhaps run it by your family members or even a friend to make sure it says what you intend before you post it.

Share The Obituary

Something that you know is family-approved is the obituary. The closest family members got together and wrote this piece up to announce your loved one’s death. They likely placed it in newspapers and on the funeral home website. They agreed upon what was placed in the obituary, so it’s an easy thing to share with others. You can simply share the link to that obituary onto your account to spread the word that your loved one has passed on.

Post On Their Accounts

If your loved one was active in social media, you might want to get into their accounts, if you can, and share the news that they have passed on. It’s important to let their friends know as well and they may be in contact with people you don’t know, or don’t know how to contact otherwise.

There are lots of things you can post about around a final service that can be a decent thing to do. Funeral homes can help you figure out what you should and shouldn’t say. You can lean on their help any time.