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“Marketing Director” nightmare
Hi! This is my first post in this community. I came here to summarize a thing I’m experiencing and hopefully get some feedback, hear others’ personal experiences, and see what y’all think. This is gonna get a little bit venty for a minute, thanks for baring with me.
You ever had a boss or bosses that refuses to hold one of their employees accountable for anything no matter what they do? So this is that type of situation, except the person in question is the social media manager, meaning that all their bad behavior is public! First off, this person has absolutely NO concept of the difference between a business page and a personal page; I see some major “Main Character Syndrome” type of behaviors.ex, They use the business page to excessively tag themselves, post tons of photos of themselves (rather than other employees), share their own content (which is adult-themed influencer content) etc. It’s absolutely WILD to me that they would ever think this is okay. Despite not being an owner or manager, this person has made themselves the main admin on all the company’s social media pages and refused to share the password with management. They blocked all the company’s owners and all other employees from their viewing their personal accounts; this is to prevent them from seeing when they use the business page to promote themselves.
They’ve promoted/shared accounts on IG that are very, very obviously spam accounts. They’ve argued with our competitors and community members (this is a small business) on public Facebook pages. Especially when the business has received online criticism, the social media manager has repeatedly responded VERY unprofessionally. They’ve even shared a (non-negative) post about a celebrity who’s recently made tons of racist comments. Obviously, the comments on this post got racist/political/stupid/trashy as well, and our social media manager not only left them up, but “liked” and “laughed at” many of them. As you might expect, their graphic design skills are also non existent. Most of the flyers and graphics posted look like an 8-10 year old created them.
All of these issues have been brought to management over and over again. The social media manager has been warned and confronted several times. Each time they’ve deliberately and knowingly crossed the lines that were drawn and management never follows up or imposes any real consequences. As a small business trying to get off the ground, this is a HUGE problem for me because I understand that poor/inappropriate marketing like this could be the difference between our success and failure and therefore whether I keep my job.
I guess my question is – HOW in the world do I get the other managers and other employees to understand how serious this is? What would you do?
They tend to respond with “I don’t have time to micromanage them” or “Social media is dumb, I don’t care about it.”
Explaining that this is their public image and it’s visible to hundreds or thousands of people who will use it to form their opinion about us did not make them care. Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Any advice? It’s just been driving me absolutely crazy, I had to try to discuss this with people who understand SMM. Thanks everyone!
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TLDR; the company I work for and cofounded hired an incompetent, uneducated, awful social media marketer and they keep posting inappropriate, unprofessional crap, poor quality graphics and photos, and mostly only promote themselves. None of the other owners or bosses oversee her performance or think this is a problem, and I’m worried this will be a factor in whether our business lives or dies. (Highly competitive and regulated industry) What would you do?
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1 Reply
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Sorry, but the post is too long. Can you summarize it in 2-3 sentences? More people will try to share their opinions then
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How big are the actual pages and how much actual reach are they getting? Is there tight competition in the industry or is it a big market where even the crappy competitor down the road is doing OK. How big is the city/town/area do you live in and reach?
The point I’m trying to make is that until you or someone can show that it directly affects the bottom line then it won’t matter. There are some industries where you can be the absolute worst but still be profitable.
Until she does something where the public outcry and bad pr is loud enough they won’t do anything. Or she breaks some law.
Why do you care? Are you on a commission based role where more sales would help your pay and this is slowing that down? (Honest questions. Not being snarky)
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Hi! I am so sorry you are dealing with this. It has to be enraging. Are you the director of marketing? In charge of sales? If yes to either, traditionally your role is this person’s boss in the sense of the sales and marketing department—you need access to the analytics and leadership must insist upon it, further, this is a business and leadership needs to have access to their business and all its communication. Show your bosses the numbers. What posts are being clicked and where do folks go upon clicking? Is the engagement driving revenue, or new customers, or new referrals? This person has one job and one job only while being paid by your employer, to promote the business, not personal projects or opinions. Finally, When the person does use the platform for their own purposes, the BUSINESS is responsible for any litigation that comes of it.
Hope this helps!
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