HOW TO: Integrate Social Media Into A Funeral, But In A Classy Way
As social media becomes more and more a part of our lives, so it must also become a natural and fitting part of our deaths. For as we totter off this mortal coil, we must not forget the importance of maintaing the digital influence and strat our dearly departed spent so much of their now-concluded lives trying to curate.
We’ve got to maximize the virality of their funerals, because it’s what they would have wanted.
But when integrating social media into a memorial service, you must take precautions to make sure you do it in a classy way. Memorializing a loved one by staring into your phone or laptop and retweeting each other’s Obitutweets is no way to send a family member or friend off into the afterlife.
Here are my suggested guidelines for successfully leveraging social media tools for a high-impact funeral service (while also seeming classy) in order to engage optimum hits during a time of death.
1. Announcing the Death
Send out a tastefully-worded Tweetblast or Foursquare Shout with the bad news. Make sure to establish what will become the definitive Official Twitter Hashtag for the deceased in order to ensure maximum virality during the post-death news cycle. Something like #RandyRIP is simple, tasteful and elegant (or you could try a more advanced Obitutwitter, such as #RIPRandyMissYouBuddy).
2. Pre-Funeral Preparations
Try leveraging Pingg or PaperlessPost (but NEVER send a lame old Evite: someone died here, don’t be a dirtbag) to put out a virtual-vitation e-nnouncement for the funeral. Is this a sad and somber situation in which someone had passed away tragically before their time, or did a rollicking old coot everyone was expecting kick any day finally flame out like an ancient Roman Candle? You can find appropriate digital eVite themes for almost any scenario, and setting the right tone for the memorial services online before the big day arrives can help prevent any awkward or confusing expressions of uncontrolled, non-curated emotions in real life.
3. Stay Offline During the Service
We’ve all seen these goofballs that bring social media right to the forefront of the funeral rites, Facebooking and checking in on Foursquare throughout the eulogies and casket-lowering. But in my opinion, there’s nothing cool or classy about that.
There’s plenty of time before the ceremony, during the procession, and at the refreshment luncheon for you to connect with your network to share relevant and meaningful web memes about the person who died. The funeral ceremony itself should be sacred, so put your smartphones on silent and only check them during the prayers and super-boring/sad-talky parts.
4. Appoint a Chief Tweet-Bearer
If you want the memorial service of the person whose life you’re celebrating to be recorded for posterity in 140-character Twitter updates, let your guests know this and encourage them to get involved (but make sure they adhere to your pre-established official funeral hashtag).
If your guests seem confused and horrified, maybe even think about going a step further and just appointing a ‘Chief Tweeter’ or group of designated ‘Tweet Bearers’ whose job it is to document the sadness and grief in a running series of Twitter blasts.
5. Set Up A Social Media Station
There’s a way to maintain the typically sober look and feel of a traditional funeral and still make room for social media.
A “Social Media Station” is a place where those who want to connect or comment online can do so, without forcing the issue on those with inferior strat who are too busy confronting the inevitability of death to harness the full potential of digital micro-communications.
Allow interested guests to leave Facebook comments on a “virtual guestbook” Death Wall, or “Like” photos of the departed one last time on Tumblr, Flickr or Instagram. Also encourage everyone to write a helpful Yelp! review of the funeral parlor.
6. Livestream Video For Those Who Can’t Make It (and Consider Getting It Sponsored)
Did you know that you can also utilize cutting-edge lifecasting video tech like Ustream to actually create a “Deathcast” by live-streaming footage of the funeral in realtime? You can! While it might seem morbid and in ridiculously poor taste, this kind of feed could drive killer streams to friends and family of the deceased who would like to be there in person but can’t, because they are too busy jacking their strat. If you think you can drive enough streams, you could also try to do an integrated ad deal whereby the Deathcast would be presented by a sponsor (such as Axe body spray). This could cover costly funeral expenses, and also honor the life of the deceased (after all, who wouldn’t drive a nice ROI even in death?)
7. Don’t Forget To Grieve
Changing a Facebook status from “In a Relationship” to “Deceased” to create a living digital memorial is a growing trend among the friends and family of those who have passed on to the Great Beyond, but don’t miss the many valuable opportunities for shared grief, strength and support that can take place at memorial services and receptions IRL. Give people hugs and say stuff like, “I’m very sorry” a lot in between Tweets and check-ins. Let the healing happen offline, too.
So remember: while a funeral is primarily meant to remember the life of someone who has died, it’s also a great opp for creating and capturing relevant content that will continue to live on the Internet for all of infinity.
Life is short, but virality is forever.
(E-Tomb image via Laughing Squid.)
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