It’s Facebook question of the week time and, because I did a video on Tuesday, you get prose today instead.
Well, that and I’m lazy again this morning. I still need to ride so no video for you!
Nancy Davis is an avid Spin Sucks reader and one of the sane commenters in a sea of crazies (myself included). She works and lives in Jersey and, I know this not because it’s on her blog (it is), but because we were joking about her showing up in a tracksuit to help me beat some of you down for not leaving questions on the Arment Dietrich Facebook wall.
I’d be scared, if I were you! So head over there and leave a question. The last thing you want is the both of us threatening to break your knees.
She asks…
I have a question for you – I have a boss who is on Facebook. He is into some “edgy” stuff. The things he “likes” on Facebook are not things I think clients should know about him. I have mentioned to him that anything he “likes” is public, and have gone to my other bosses and no one is doing anything. How can I deal with this? This has the potential to lose clients, especially if they see the questionable (porn related) things one of my bosses “likes.” Please help me!
Some of you may have heard me to tell this story, so hang with me. I think it’ll help Nancy.
Two years ago, this Memorial Day, we were in Beaver Creek with our good friends Harry and Erin Brumleve. The boys were enjoying the Blues, Brews, and BBQ festival and the girls were spending the day hiking.
We finished our hike and went to have a glass of wine.
If you’ve ever hiked in the mountains, in altitude, you know your adrenaline is pumping, your endorphines are going, and the air is thin. So one glass of wine + all of that = silliness.
Well, Erin LOVES Keanu Reeves (actually, loved; now she LOVES Russell Brand) and it’s really fun to tease her about his being gay. She gets all defensive and worked up and it’s really funny to watch.
So, this particular trip, we were teasing her and, now I don’t remember what the bet was, but she had a bet with Mr. D that if she lost, she’d have to put on Facebook that she finally admits that she can never have him (as if she could if he were straight).
And I tweeted something to the effect of, “If @erinbrumleve loses a bet, she has to admit Keanu Reeves is gay.” Or something stupid like that.
Well, we were about a signature away from closing a new piece of business and the client saw that tweet.
And he read it as my being homophobic.
And he refused to sign the contract.
So we lost that business. All because of a joke and a stupid tweet.
So, Nancy, that’s my long way of telling you that you can and will lose business because of the way your boss behaves on Facebook.
My guess is porn-related stuff is likely much worse than what I did.
I wish I had some magical thing you could say that would make him stop.
It’s not an easy thing to do, and it’s easy for me to say sitting 1,000 miles away, but I think you have to be pretty upfront with him about it. “Boss-man, when you like porn-related things on Facebook, clients and prospects aren’t going to want to work with us.”
Likely he thinks it’s all private and no one sees it. You could even prove that it’s out there for people to see, if he fights you on it.
Or perhaps you can share this blog post with him. Or maybe it will take not getting (or losing) some business before he gets it.
What do you guys think?