One button with so much or so little power...depending on how you look at it!

Dear Reader, this confession has been a couple of years in the making but here it is!
There are some people who think the ultimate power move and final insult after a 'business relationship' has gone 'Pete Tong' is to delete you as a 'friend' on Facebook.

Some of us in this profession and neighbouring roles as managers, agents, business managers etc will not take it personally. I repeat we will not take it personally but instead just laugh at the certain individual(s).

 In recent times this has occurred on more than one occasion. Be it a young, naive, little known (stress on little known!) artist, an ‘established’ one or even a wannabe promoter – were all at one point very eager to become a ‘friend’. However, when either cold feet or the administration of a reality check after a severe bout of over inflated ego with hallucinations of delusions of grandeur struck, said artist(s) and the like swiftly withdrew from the project(s) and our online social lives. The unfriend button was pressed and as if by magic, all ties appeared to be severed.

 

Of course, in my eyes and those around me with an I.Q. higher than our shoe size sees such actions as juvenile plain and simple. Oh no! Someone with whom I had a wholly professional relationship has said that we’re not friends! What will I do?! The real question is should we be in contact with our clients on our personal social media accounts in the first place? We all have work numbers. We all have work email addresses. We all have office hours! The argument that social media aids communication stumbles and falls at this point. There are plenty of ways for a client in particular to contact me without entering into my social life; and those who we consider ‘associates’ well, that’s a slightly more precarious situation.

A friend request is a statement. A statement that is shared with the rest of your online social life and will remain there until one of you presses the dreaded ‘unfriend’ button. Adding a client as a friend opens a window to you outside of your professional world, the parts of you that you share with friends. Where being professional is unimportant because you’re not at work! Now I can’t speak for all Publicists but I personally don’t feel comfortable with sharing that much information with a client.

And of course there are exceptions. A client can become a genuine friend, often during a long term working relationship. Such incidents are far from impossible and can often enrich your working life. But a personal Facebook friend request is not  the way to start a professional relationship. There needs to be a clearer line between client and friend. After all, how many of your friendships began with either you or your friend paying the other for services? More importantly, how many of your ex-clients do you casually keep in contact with after your professional relationship was over?

I would really rather not have deal with the idea that ex-clients will be unfriending me. But this is mostly because I don’t think that they should be sending me friend requests in the first place. Because the majority of times when the ‘unfriend’ button has been used to end a relationship, the relationship has been unsuccessful. And rarely because of any of my actions, might I add.

So, before you think of sending me that friend request, I have this proposition for you. Perhaps we should work on building an efficient professional relationship before we branch out into anything else. It’s probably for the best.

 

*Names have been changed and/or removed to protect the painfully ignorant.*