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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Asked to use personal social media to promote work

109 replies

Sockypuppet · 21/11/2019 05:59

I'm not an owner or partner of my business. Just an employee. People in my life know where I work.

Boss/owner regularly asks us to use our personal WhatsApp and Facebook accounts to promote his business.

Loads of us are just quietly... not doing it. If I spam my job to my personal contacts they'll just mute/hide me.

Is this a normal thing now?

OP posts:
daisypond · 21/11/2019 16:48

Haha!

PrettyPurse · 21/11/2019 16:54

@Sockypuppet you can restrict his view though

PrettyPurse · 21/11/2019 16:55

Or leave him on there and post a "work" post but only allow him to see it

Lhastingsmua · 21/11/2019 17:00

I work in finance & I don’t associate my employer with any social media, at all. Not that my posts are particularly damning - they’re just mundane but I’d rather tweet about what I like and post clubbing photos etc in peace.

GBroGal · 21/11/2019 17:04

Can you create a new account and add the boss as your one and only 'friend' then post away to his heart's content, so he thinks you're complying?

messolini9 · 21/11/2019 17:08

And so what do we say when he asks why no one's doing it?

You tell him that your personal SM is just that - personal.
If he wants you to promote the business on SM, you can do it for him on the business's own page.

He has no more right to ask you to use your personal info to promote his business than he has to set up an office in your living room.

Notsurehowtofixit · 21/11/2019 17:10

Yes, have a "professional" account. My sister does that. The professional one is for marketing and work events etc., and the other one is for friends and personal stuff.

saraclara · 21/11/2019 17:18

Why is your boss a FB friend? Who does that?

He has absolutely no right to view your FB page. I would definitely put him on restricted view if you really can't unfriend him.

Original poster
Sockypuppet · 21/11/2019 17:18

Yeah but that's what linked in is for! I dont want to deal with two damn Facebook accounts.

I've put my business card as my WhatsApp status but I'm not doing the Facebook stuff and if anyone asks I'll just look surprised and say its a personal account.

OP posts:
Original poster
Sockypuppet · 21/11/2019 17:30

I'm really irritated now.

None of the other management have done it so I'll just carry on and hopefully someone a bit more senior than I will have a quiet word.

OP posts:
AliceLittle · 21/11/2019 17:42

You can't "block" your boss! Again, real world.

Yes you can.

icannotremember · 21/11/2019 17:44

How weird. In my line of work our policies are all about NOT linking work and our social media. I'd get disciplined if I promoted my employer on Facebook etc.

I'd delete if I were you and make a new account that you do not friend your boss on!

Aquamarine1029 · 21/11/2019 17:48

You can't "block" your boss! Again, real world.

It is the real world and yes you can. You are under no obligation to friend your boss, and I think people who do are very foolish. Your social media should be for friends, family and special interests only. Allowing your employer to peek into your personal life is just asking for trouble.

I would tell him very clearly, yet politely, that you are not comfortable promoting business matters on your private sm and you will not be doing it. I would then either block him or prevent him from reading any of your posts.

GloGirl · 21/11/2019 17:48

He's actually mad. Can you go to him and recommend a social media strategist who can help him understand how organic social media reach should work?

Tableclothing · 21/11/2019 17:49

You can't "block" your boss! Again, real world.

You can, and I do. Lots of people find it thoroughly sensible to have no one from work on their SM.

Dutch1e · 21/11/2019 17:55

And so what do we say when he asks why no one's doing it?

"There are some great ways to achieve the objective using social media however personal promotion of a workplace is a bad idea. Happy to make a time to talk about this further."

saraclara · 21/11/2019 18:06

Allowing your employer to peek into your personal life is just asking for trouble.

Absolutely. I'm astonished that anyone would do that.

MitziK · 21/11/2019 18:10

GDPR and personal safety.

He's instructing you to do something he isn't allowed to - release information that makes his staff clearly identifiable and vulnerable to being traced. As a lot of people will use pets' or children's names as passwords, linking the two means his security systems are at risk of being bypassed. It'll demonstrate exactly when you are away from home and for how long each day (as in 'Opening hours are...'). Through being seen by the firm (so he can check up on you doing it), any SM privacy choices are negated. You might not know a random friend is actually hiding from a violent ex, but if somebody else in the company knows the abuser, they can see and share the details so they can be traced. It's forcing you to release the details of people who might not want the company to then harvest the data and target them.

This sort of shit is exactly why the first thing I do in a new company was track down new colleagues/managers (especially managers) and block them. Just in case.

I wouldn't hesitate to block my boss even now - 'why am I not on your FB?'. 'I decided to close it when I started getting inappropriate messages from people who had found me from details given out through work'. Block the company page, block his wife's account, his PA's account, block the fucking lot and set your privacy to Friends Only.

By the way, I was the SM bod for one employer. I set up a separate account on an old phone with no SIM, using it on Wifi purely to get paid for the work. It doesn't work like that when the boss knows the laws.

NatashaAlianovaRomanova · 21/11/2019 18:14

You can't "block" your boss! Again, real world.

I blocked my old boss because he kept sending me messages about work on weekends & during holidays!

I now don't have any colleagues on my SM.

Lhastingsmua · 21/11/2019 18:24

One thing you could try is making the requested post, but change the settings so that’s it’s only visible to your boss or co workers and no one else. It is a faff. But you technically will make the marketing post without actually marketing and they wouldn’t easily find out.

badgermushrooms · 21/11/2019 18:30

My old company did this. It showed how dim they were as we sold a product worth thousands of pounds to other businesses - it was pretty obvious that the pub cleaner I once met at a Napalm Death gig was not going to be our target market.

Anyway I ignored it quietly, and then when pushed pointed out I used my social media to argue about politics and did they really want to associate the company with my fringe views about 4x4s. They soon left it alone.

Original poster
Sockypuppet · 21/11/2019 18:30

Yeah but we're supposed to tag all our friends, so that would be obvious if the post were only visible to my boss!

OP posts:
Original poster
Sockypuppet · 21/11/2019 18:31

Laughing at the idea of having a separate Facebook account with my boss as the one "friend". I could spam him all day long!

OP posts:
saraclara · 21/11/2019 18:33

@Sockypuppet for goodness sake, remove your boss from your Facebook. I'm sure that not all your colleagues have him as a friend.

It's absolute insanity to have one's boss as a FB friend. I could list the obvious risks, but I'm sure you can work them out for yourself.

CherryCheezcake · 21/11/2019 18:37

If you don't want to unfriend your boss, then you can add them to your Restricted list, and then make everything you post accessible by your friends only, rather than public. The Restricted list can only see posts that are public, or that you tag them in.

To add someone to your Restricted list, go to their profile, click on the 'Friends' button, which is on big picture at the top (on a desktop, don't know where it is on a phone, sorry), and you get a drop-down with Get notifications/Close friends/Acquaintances/Add to another list/Unfriend, and click Add to another list and select Restricted.

However I will also add my voice to the chorus saying ignore him or unfriend him.