I thought I had seen it all until tonight. There was a trending hashtag on Instagram #dontdeletemyaccount. You are going to love this one. So, there were hundreds of thousands of teenagers posting pictures because their was a fake newsletter that went out saying if a picture had not been submitted in so many days Instagram was going to delete an account. Honestly? These kids really believe this load of garbage? In all reality, this would be a great hoax for Facebook to do just to get people to get more active on Instagram. Do not put it past them.

Facebook and Instagram Are a Complete Joke

Anyone that believes a major social network will delete an account for inactivity is completely clueless. That would be like WalMart not selling you toilet paper because you haven't shopped their in two weeks. The way social networks make money is by having huge numbers. Even if these accounts aren't active they can still claim millions of users to advertisers. When advertisers see that 25 million people are on Instagram they are much more willing to pay a higher dollar amount for advertising.

If Facebook was going to truly delete the accounts of inactive users they would be the absolute dumbest company in the history of time. They may already hold that honor but this would put them on a level that could never be reached. I am just going to throw this out there. Why in the heck would Instagram, owned by Facebook, delete inactive accounts? What would be the logical reason? If you could give me one reason this would happen I will be more than happy to rescind my statement that Instagram and Facebook users are the absolute dumbest on the Internet.

The only answer I would accept would be that Instagram cannot afford to host all of these pictures. If that is your argument why in the heck would they say anything? They would just delete the account and you would have to create another one. I sit here shaking my head at just how stupid these users are. It is important to note that the hashtag started with mostly teenagers posting pictures. I recognize that these teenagers have never earned a dollar in their life but aren't they a little bit smarter than this?

This Prove Why Facebook Can't Make Money

If users on Instagram are worried about an account being deleted they are very naive to how the world works. This tells me they are also not the individuals that make money nor have money to spend. There is a very good reason that advertisers pay more for a TV commercial on CNBC when compared to MTV. The eyeballs that see these advertisements determine how much they are worth.

If Instagram and Facebook are full of teenagers that think their accounts are going to be delete because they are inactive these are not the type of people advertisers are going to pay to view ads. How many 13 year old boys are making a purchase over $500? In fact, how many 13 year old boys have ever had the opportunity to make a single purchase in their entire lives?

There is some value in having this demographic on a social network but they are not nearly as valuable as adults who have an average income over $100k. Advertising in the Wall Street Journal is much more expensive than advertising in Teen magazine. This makes perfect sense as those who are reading the Wall Street Journal have a lot more money to spend. Not only do they have a lot more money to spend but they are also making purchases for everyone else in their household.

Did Facebook Come Up With This?

I have zero inside information on where this whole trend started but it would not surprise me, in the least, if Facebook came up with this to simply generate some buzz around Instagram. Just tonight I was talking with a friend about how the interest in Instagram is starting to wane because the college kids are back home and they are not posting as many pictures. As the high school and middle school kids go on summer vacation this will likely continue.

There is only one way for Facebook and Instagram to keep the momentum going. Either create an amazing product that has the end user in mind or come up with a stupid hashtag. It may very well have been the case that some 12 year old girl came up with this idea but it seems to be a little bit too complex for that. Once again, I have no inside information but it does take an influencer to make something go viral on the Internet. Most of these preteens on Instagram would not be considered influencers.

As we continue to head into the summer months I will track the data on both Instagram and Facebook to see if interest continues to slide. Everything I have seen has shown that Facebook users are spending less time on the site. They are not leaving Facebook but they are spending less time on Facebook. This is very similar to what we saw with MySpace years ago. Many people still have a MySpace account but they have no desire to sign in as all of their friends have not signed in over the past several years.

Tracking time on site is not easily done from someone on the outside looking in. That said, I live right beside three major college campuses. I talk to the students as much as possible and all of them say that they use it just as a necessary evil to get through school. Once the school year is over they are more than willing to walk away and enjoy some of the other things in life. Facebook and Instagram have a huge mobile presence so that should hold them through but we will see what happens in the months of June and July 2013.