# Our Instagram profile has been dead for a year. Start again or carry on with the old one? | Illia BizTech > 480 followers, 60 posts, the profile picture still the logo from before the rebrand. The two-factor number belongs to a colleague who has left. Source: https://illia-biztech.de/en/forum/our-instagram-profile-has-been-dead-for-a-year-start-again-or-carry-on-with-the-old-one 1. [Home](/en) 2. [Forum](/en/forum) 3. Our Instagram profile has been dead for a year. Start again or carry on with the old one? # Our Instagram profile has been dead for a year. Start again or carry on with the old one? 480 followers, 60 posts, the profile picture still the logo from before the rebrand. The two-factor number belongs to a colleague who has left. * ##### Asked on August 31, 2026 The last post on our company profile is from September last year. It was done by a colleague who has since left. 480 followers, 60 posts, and the profile picture is still the old logo from before the rebrand. An agency has advised us to delete the profile and start again cleanly, because the algorithm supposedly penalises dead accounts. We have also discovered that the profile carries no link to our legal notice, and that the former colleague's mobile number is the one registered for two-factor sign-in. #### Answers ![Portrait of Alina Belichenko, content and social media specialist](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/small_Alina_Belichenko_author_ae667ebec9.png) ##### Alina Belichenko ✓ Accepted answer September 1, 2026 Delete nothing. Your most urgent problem is in the last paragraph of your question, not the first. A two-factor number belonging to somebody who has left the company means this: the next security check can lock you out of your own account, and at that point the argument about starting fresh settles itself. Deal with it today while you are still signed in, and register a company number and a company email address that several people can reach. The agency's advice points the wrong way. 480 followers are an asset you throw away by deleting and cannot buy back in months. I am not aware of any official statement that a paused account is permanently penalised, and what Instagram has actually said points the other way: [Adam Mosseri has publicly advised against deleting posts and reposting them](https://onlinemarketing.de/social-media-marketing/instagram-tipp-chef-loeschen-neu-posten-nicht-ratsam). Anyone advising a clean start is selling you the work that clean start creates. The old posts stay. A profile with sixty posts spanning two years reads far better to a person checking you out than an empty one with three posts from yesterday. Update the picture, the name, the description and the link, and start posting again. The first few weeks will feel heavy because the audience has gone cold, and after that it settles. The missing legal notice link is, incidentally, the one item on your list that genuinely touches an obligation. It applies to commercial offerings and does not depend on whether you sell anything there, [Section 5 DDG](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ddg/%5F%5F5.html). A profile is not a rule-free zone, and the usual solution is a link in the bio pointing at your legal notice. ##### #### [The quote was 6,000 euros and the invoice came to 9,500\. Do we have to pay it?](/en/forum/the-quote-was-6-000-euros-and-the-invoice-came-to-9-500-do-we-have-to-pay-it) September 5, 2026 [](/en/forum/the-quote-was-6-000-euros-and-the-invoice-came-to-9-500-do-we-have-to-pay-it) #### [The confirmation email from our contact form lands in customers' spam. Why?](/en/forum/the-confirmation-email-from-our-contact-form-lands-in-customers-spam-why) September 4, 2026 [](/en/forum/the-confirmation-email-from-our-contact-form-lands-in-customers-spam-why) #### [We received a letter about Google Fonts demanding 170 euros. Do we pay?](/en/forum/we-received-a-letter-about-google-fonts-demanding-170-euros-do-we-pay) September 4, 2026 [](/en/forum/we-received-a-letter-about-google-fonts-demanding-170-euros-do-we-pay) #### [Our shop window carries the company name in German and Upper Sorbian. How do we write it on Google?](/en/forum/our-shop-window-carries-the-company-name-in-german-and-upper-sorbian-how-do-we-write-it-on-google) September 3, 2026 [](/en/forum/our-shop-window-carries-the-company-name-in-german-and-upper-sorbian-how-do-we-write-it-on-google) #### [What counts as a normal cost per enquiry from Google Ads?](/en/forum/what-counts-as-a-normal-cost-per-enquiry-from-google-ads) September 3, 2026 [](/en/forum/what-counts-as-a-normal-cost-per-enquiry-from-google-ads) **Share** **Topics** * Instagram * account access * legal notice